Pakistan needed a used Multan pitch and a spin-confounded England batting unit to break its remarkable 11-game winless streak at home in Test cricket.
Pakistan’s out-of-the-box idea of reusing the surface stemmed from a humiliating innings defeat in the first Test against England, despite scoring 556 runs in the first innings.
The Multan win also marked a significant departure from Pakistan’s home Test strategy in the last five years, which had heavily favoured batters.
Since 2019, when Test cricket returned to Pakistan after a decade-long break due to the Lahore terror attack, batters have averaged 38.03 runs per dismissal in the country — the highest among all Test-playing nations during this period.
Both home and away batters have capitalised on the pliant, flat Pakistani pitches, swelling their aggregates. In the 17 Tests Pakistan has hosted in this period, batters have accumulated 48 centuries, the second-most in any country, behind only England, which has seen 59 tons.
However, when it comes to centuries per game, Pakistan tops the chart by a significant margin — 2.82 hundreds per game, with Sri Lanka’s 2.26 a distant second.
The rise in individual hundreds has also translated into teams consistently tallying huge totals. In the last five years, there have been eight 500+ innings totals in Test cricket in Pakistan, the joint-highest among all countries, alongside Australia.
With run-scoring becoming easier and bowling subsequently more difficult, Pakistan has seen a larger share of matches drifting into draws. Over 29 per cent of Tests in Pakistan in the last five years have ended in draws. Only West Indies has produced a larger share of draws in this period. To put this into context, this has happened in an era where Test cricket has been at its best in terms of producing results.
Despite the tailor-made pitches aimed at harnessing its strengths, Pakistan has struggled to win at home in Test cricket over the last five years. It has won only five of its 17 matches, with a win-loss ratio of 0.714 at home — the third-lowest among all nations, ahead of only Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.
“The change in pitches started ahead of the Australia series back in early 2022,” says Bazid Khan, a former Pakistan international and noted commentator. Having followed the game closely, Khan believes it was a conscious decision by the Pakistan Cricket Board to change the nature of the wickets in a bid to nullify Australia’s fast-bowling attack.
“The nature of the wicket in Rawalpindi was changed, and there was no moisture on the wicket. Then it became hard. Since they left the wicket hard for all the days, there was hardly anything for the bowlers. A similar thing happened when England toured later, as wickets were flat,” Khan says.
The move backfired, as England claimed the series 3-0. But Pakistan’s woes did not end there. As the flat wickets persisted, Pakistan’s top-tier fast bowlers — Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah — struggled, and soon, the hosts found themselves trapped by their own plan.
“Test cricket gets so exciting to watch when you have pitches that slightly favour the bowlers instead of just flat lifeless ones,” points out former coach Mickey Arthur.
A major reason for Pakistan’s inability to convert home advantage into wins was also its underperforming batting unit, best embodied by the out-of-form Babar Azam, who was rested for the team’s win against England in Multan.
In the last five years, away batters have averaged 39.02 in Pakistan, while their home counterparts have managed just 37.13 runs per wicket.
Additionally, the flat nature of Pakistani pitches has also taken the spinners largely out of the equation, which has particularly benefited non-subcontinental teams.
“Traditionally, pitches in Pakistan didn’t offer you much, but at least they were better than the lifeless ones being laid out at the moment,” says Khan, adding, “Every area has its natural pitches, and in an effort to negate the opposition’s bowling attack, we have destroyed our wickets, and now we are struggling to make them beneficial for us.”
After the first Test against England, Pakistan’s assistant coach Azhar Mahmood claimed that the team management had a clear plan for the pitches in the series against Bangladesh and England. “Our approach was pace wickets against Bangladesh and spin pitches against England. Our instruction to the curator for the first Test was that the ball should spin after the second day. But the pitch didn’t take turn until even the fifth day,” Mahmood said.
However, things didn’t go as expected. Leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed was the only specialist spinner in the XI, with Pakistan fielding Naseem, Shaheen, and Aamer Jamal to lead the attack. However, with England piling up 823 for 7 — the highest score Pakistan has ever conceded — the plan boomeranged, and as Khan points out, the “team seemed clueless about how to claim ten wickets in those placid conditions.”
In the Multan Test, Pakistan shifted from its pace-centric approach, relying instead on the spin duo of Sajid Khan and Noman Ali. The strategy worked, as all 20 English wickets in the second Test were shared between the two Pakistani spinners, guiding the host to a breakthrough win.
(All stats updated till second Pakistan vs England Test)
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