Pakistan v England, 1st Test: Five Things We Learned

Pakistan edge the opening day at Abu Dhabi as mistakes add trauma to England’s toil. Five things from the opening exchanges of the first Test…

MAN OF THE DAY: Shoaib Malik

As the excellent Osman Samiuddin writes here, Shoaib Malik has donned many different hats in his 16 years as an international cricketer. Not all have been the right fit. A snapshot of his Test career shows a couple of them: 11 visits to the crease as an opener, 28 matches as a middle-order/off-spinning allrounder. Following a procession of failures against Australia and England in 2010, he went back to first class cricket and worked on an inside-out technique that, at times, has presented a gap between bat and pad wide enough for a bus. He still resorts to type in limited-overs, but on day one of the test, coming in at number three for the first time in 55 innings, he looked an accomplished presence. The vast majority of his runs came through the off side, most of those off the back foot, as he persisted on guiding rather than going at the ball, particularly enjoying the extra pace of Mark Wood. Together with Mohammed Hafeez, who looked in better touch for his 98, the pair registered Pakistan’s second highest second wicket stand with 168. Who knows how long Malik will last at first drop. For now, he’s got another hat to don and he wore it well.

KHAN CAN – AND HAS

In the cartoon scramble that is Pakistan cricket, Younis Khan is the character who manages to emerge from the bundle unscathed to give a quick glance inside, before turning to the audience and delivering a wry smile. And what a smile it is. But he’s equal parts showman as scamp: with a six off Moeen Ali, Khan became Pakistan’s leading Test runscorer, passing the legendary Javed Miandad.

He’s not as sexy as some of his countrymen on that list, but none of them can touch him away from aesthetics, even excluding sheer volume of runs: he has more centuries (30), more scores of 150 or above (11) and more catches (110) than any Pakistani Test cricketer. His place among the greats has long been questioned. He’s fought and scrapped and, with that six to mid-wicket, removed any doubt.

RASH JUDGEMENT

It would be wrong to judge Adil Rashid on his first day of Test cricket. Instead, let’s talk about how he did and come to some early assumptions.

He bowled a touch too slow. The stats say at least 6mph too slow, based on the speeds of the trio of Saeed Ajmal, Abdur Rehman and Hafeez during Pakistan’s demolition of England here in 2012. It was evident when Hafeez and Shoaib Malik were able to play Rashid square through point by waiting for the ball off the pitch. His introduction into the attack saw the run rate go above four an over.

As for positives – I’m being generous here – he followed up a full toss, which Hafeez hit to the boundary to bring up the team fifty, with a flighted delivery. He turned a few too and returned well as England closed out the day

In summary: none of what we saw changes what we already know. With that in mind, it seems particularly foolhardy to jump on a debutant leg-spinner’s performance on day one of a Test match.

DROPPING IT WHEN IT’S HOT

A tale of three catches. Two weren’t taken, one was. At 12 for one, Hafeez (7*) was dropped by Ian Bell off James Anderson. At 98-1, Malik (40*) drove hard to gully off Stuart Broad, who had overstepped – the sixth time this year that an England bowler had no-balled while taking a wicket. At 284 for 4, with England closing out the day well, Asad Shafiq (10*) became the second to nick off to Anderson – #TeamMisbah – only for Bell to shell for the second time. So far, those drops have cost England 176 runs. In conditions that sapped the energy and tested the nerve, on pitch that asked for unwavering patience from the bowlers, those three errors were criminal.

JIMMY BREAKS INTO THE TOP 10

While he should have finished a tiring day with four wickets for diddlysquat, James Anderson broke into the list of the top 10 Test bowlers of all-time with the two he did nab. Who knows what Shan Masood was thinking when he headed Anderson’s 11th ball onto his stumps, but it was this scalp that drew him level with Wasim Akram on 414 dismissals. He was then assisted hugely by S Ravi in the third umpire’s chair to bump Akram out of the top 10, when Misbah-Ul-Haq was sent on his way for allegedly feathering one behind. The original decision was not out, the review was called for – it’s worth noting Anderson hardly appealed – before Misbah was given his marching orders. Not the prettiest, but they all count. All 415 of them.