“There is no change in the approach,” insisted Azhar Mahmood, Pakistan’s assistant head coach, as he fielded questions on Monday about what had been a tumultuous 72 hours. Minutes after he spoke the team for the second Test dropped, and there had been a complete change in the approach.
Just seven weeks ago Pakistan fielded an all-pace attack against Bangladesh; last month their captain, Shan Masood, said they would prepare seam-friendly strips for this series because they “don’t have the quality of spinners to take 20 wickets in a match”; last week their two specialist seamers bowled 57 overs; this week there is only one left, and he’s a part-timer. Instead they have rolled the dice on spin.
They have done so even though Abrar Ahmed, their best spinner, remains absent with dengue fever. Instead they have brought in Zahid Mahmood, Sajid Khan and Noman Ali. England will be most familiar with the 36-year-old Mahmood, who played twice when they were last in the country two years ago, his only Tests to date. He took a creditable 12 wickets, though half of those were Jimmy Anderson, Jack Leach or Ollie Robinson, but went at 6.94 an over, thereby becoming the most expensive bowler in Test history: of those who have sent down at least 350 deliveries his economy rate is the worst by a massive margin (Ireland’s Ben White is second on 5.69).
Noman, 38, replaced him for the final game of that series, and the most recent of his 15 Tests was in Sri Lanka in July 2023. Sajid has played eight Tests, the most recent in January. With Pakistan’s domestic first-class competition, the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, running from October to December none of the trio has played red-ball cricket since January, and Noman not since last October.
Pakistan are banking everything on the novel tactic of playing successive Tests on the same, already fatigued pitch and hoping that it eventually starts spinning. Mahmood insisted the plan was for it to have done so last week, though if that were the case they might have picked more than one specialist spinner for that game. “We planned to go with a spin pitch against England and wanted the ball to spin [last week] after day two,” he said. “Our instructions were for a spin pitch but it did not take turn even on the fifth day. Now I think in the next Test, the ninth-day pitch will take turn.”
On Monday Masood, head coach Jason Gillespie, head curator Tony Hemming and several members of the selection committee spent almost an hour standing next to the pitch in heated discussion, suggesting this tactic has not received universal endorsement.
In using the same pitch Pakistan are, counterintuitively, breaking new ground. “We can discuss what we think it’s going to do, but we won’t really know until a day or a session has been played on it,” said Ben Stokes, who has never seen the like and no idea what to expect. “You’d like to think it will offer spinners more than it did last game. I’m not sure the bowlers will like it, but you can still see the footmarks from the last Test. Who knows what’s going to happen?”
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While Pakistan’s bowling group has been transformed they have made only one change to the batting line-up: Kamran Ghulam makes his debut as a replacement for Babar Azam, who like the first-choice seam pair of Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah has been rested for the remainder of the series. Mahmood said those decisions had also always been part of the plan: “We knew we had more tours so we knew we would have changes,” he said. “It’s not done [because of] a result.”
England’s changes have been comparatively minimal: Stokes, having recovered full fitness, replaces Chris Woakes, while Matt Potts joins his captain and Brydon Carse in an all-Durham pace attack with Gus Atkinson rested. “The seamers have bowled a lot of overs,” Stokes said. “It’s a good time for them to get their feet up and have a break.”
Meanwhile, the Pakistan Cricket Board have moved to quash rumours that the third and final Test will be moved from Rawalpindi to Multan because of planned anti-government protests in nearby Islamabad. “The third Test will be played in Rawalpindi and there is no substance to the rumours about the match being moved,” they said in a statement.