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- author, Sami Chaudhry
- position, Cricket analyst
Pakistan made the cricket world stand up by making an untouchable decision, but the host team itself will be defeated in the home conditions. Made by playing without a sniper.
Historically this pitch in Rawalpindi has always been effective for seamers and there is a good example of this in recent years when South Africa and Pakistan played a thrilling match here in which neither team reached the 300 mark in their innings. The match was over on the fifth morning.
But while hosting Australia, the then chairman PCB decided to make the pitch ‘neutral’ to deprive the fast bowlers of the visiting team from the favorable conditions, resulting in only 14 wickets falling in five days and five overs. The day’s labor was in vain.
After this, when Pakistan played against England on the same pitch, the highest first day total in the history of Test cricket was recorded where the English batsmen scored more than five hundred runs.
And now this is the match where Pakistan is fielding with a complete pace attack and has lost just 17 wickets in four days of play.
Such a pitch is nothing less than a threat to the health of Test cricket. And for Pakistan cricket too, such pitches cannot be a sign of a bright future as such pitches cannot be seen anywhere outside Pakistan.
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New Australian curator Tony Hemmings can’t be blamed too much for taking on the responsibility so recently, but credit cannot be spared for Ramez Raja’s revolutionary decision, which made the pitch favorable for the pacers. Made it so barren that any fast bowler would shy away from standing here.
The fault lies not with this pitch, but with the PCB, where there has never been such continuity in the management that Pakistani pitches or Pakistani cricket can have a firm identity of its own. Sometimes this team tends to be aggressive and sometimes positive terms like ‘The Pakistan Way’ definitely come out, but in reality no clear form of this cricket culture can ever come out.
In defense of the decision to field four pacers in the attack, Azhar Mahmood says that the mistake was not in ‘pitch reading’ but the pitch has betrayed his estimates by its behaviour.
His point is also supported by the argument that if the pitch had not received continuous sunlight in the first session of the first day before the match, its grass would have shown more work and the pace of the match would have been suitable for Pakistan’s team selection.
But the decision to field without a specialist spinner could only be repeated if the old ball started to reverse swing and the pacers could prove decisive.
The grass of this pitch was neither green for Sam nor did he allow any vandalism in the pitch. Thus, the possibility of reverse swing also ended.
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Pakistan’s bowling can be criticized for not consistently maintaining good length discipline and giving priority to emotion over reason in the use of the second new ball, but bowling 30 overs in the hot sun of Rawalpindi is not a test itself. No less.
Although Mushfiqur Rahim fell short of his second milestone and the Bangladesh-like lead he was hoping for failed to materialise, the fourth evening session certainly saw some activity on the pitch which should be a glimmer of hope for the fast bowlers. can
But if the old ball loses even this activity in the fifth morning session, the match could end in an ugly draw.
The test now is for Pakistan’s middle order to see how far they can keep Bangladesh from making history.
