Across two Tests and three innings, they bowled unchanged for 89.5 overs, turning into Pakistan’s two-man answer to Bazball
Danyal Rasool24-Oct-2024Plenty had happened since Pakistan last made a bowling change. They had won a first home Test in four years. The entirety of the knockout stages of the Women’s T20 World Cup had taken place. New Zealand had won their first Test in India in 35 years. Pakistan’s newly-formed selection committee had travelled from Multan to Rawalpindi alongside the chief curator Tony Hemming, and, in what vaguely felt like a crime against horticulture, heated, fanned, sunned, shaded and raked 22 yards of soil to subvert its natural characteristics.Spanning eight days, three England innings and two cities, Sajid Khan and Noman Ali had thrown themselves into the cause with the zeal of men who could barely believe they had been called on. It appeared that their surprise was matched by that of their head coach, who had, twice in the past two days, made clear to anyone who would listen that none of this was his plan. But having bowled Sajid and Noman in tandem for the final 15 overs of England’s first innings last week in Multan, Shan Masood, who had similarly had his wings clipped, stuck with them for all of their second. Sajid and Noman were then entrusted with the new ball in Pindi – the first time a Pakistan side had ever opened a Test with two spinners – and they simply carried on.Related
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Lunch was taken, and yet, when play resumed, there was no change. Like one of those Fantasy Football games where, once locked out of your account, you can never go back in to make changes, Pakistan kept to their last default setting. On commentary, Ramiz Raja worried about the two spinners tiring their fingers out, but, having played no first-class cricket since January, Pakistan’s new 31- and 38-year-old saviours were making up for lost time.The journalists were briefly ushered out of the press box to commemorate a milestone, with the PCB having prepared a cake to mark English journalist Scyld Berry’s 500th Test match. When everyone returned, Sajid and Noman were still bowling; they might as well have been there before Berry made his debut.The pleasant morning gave way to a warm afternoon, and the crowd gradually built up. The stadium announcer was doing his best to keep them animated, rousing them into cries of Sajid and Noman, but swiftly found himself out of ideas beyond that. If he was anything like the DJ in Multan, whose entire playlist was a shuffle between Wonderwall and Skyfall, that admittedly didn’t take much.In truth, though, when the change finally happened was merely a statistical curiosity. There was not once in what would become 89.5 unbroken overs from the pair that a change was required and passed up. This Pindi surface, after all the ignominies visited upon it, was taking spin from the outset, and few bowlers in Pakistan currently can exploit that better than Sajid and Noman.Noman preyed on Zak Crawley’s impatience at a crucial point in the first session, when England’s openers appeared to have countered the spin threat in a 56-run stand, slowing the pace down – a tactic the left-arm spinner has employed cannily through his career – and landing it wide. Earlier that over, he’d beaten Crawley with a perfect delivery that drifted in landed on middle, and ripped past Crawley’s outside edge. This, by contrast, looked like a loosener, and Crawley snatched at it, slicing it to gully.Sajid Khan finished with figures of 6 for 128•Getty ImagesSajid found an area outside off stump from where he could turn his offbreak at pace, and stuck with it. His knack of in-match problem-solving helped Pakistan turn around the second Test, and he found turn to trap Ollie Pope and Joe Root in quick succession – the latter with a ripper that even Root’s quick hands were unable to keep out.By now, the pitch’s demons were making no effort to conceal themselves. Ben Duckett had battled for his half-century on a surface designed specifically to preclude him from doing so. But no batter, however set, could have accounted for the one that just about rolled along the ground after landing on middle. It barely hit him above the ankle; he hardly had enough time to shoot the surface a look of disgust before the umpire sent him on his way. There were cackles in the crowd, and even the Pakistan players’ delight was tempered by the acceptance that this wasn’t a manner of dismissal usually found in the first session of day one.But it’s often too easy to treat and the moustache-twirling, thigh slapping Sajid as gentle, harmless figures of fun. Their presence in the side can be explained away by Pakistan’s chaotic desperation, their success as a product of pitch preparation. The pitch was expected to hold itself together for a couple of days, but if these two were getting wickets, it must have been crumbling apart. Even when in the wickets, as they have been since they were called up, the marketability of Sajid and Noman – combined age 69 and combined hairline to match – doesn’t hold a candle to Pakistan’s quicks, thick luscious hair and all. Even ESPNcricinfo has been guilty of this in the past, only talking Noman up if it could be done through the prism of Naseem Shah’s wider appeal.But it is when things got deadly serious that Pakistan turned to Sajid and Noman. Jamie Smith, the only batter to comprehensively pass Pakistan’s death-by-spin test, called Sajid a “fantastic bowler”; having missed the first Test, he is already the series’ highest wicket-taker. It is the presence of these two that emboldened Pakistan to try out this drastic change of strategy in the first place, confident that their quality on helpful surfaces would overcome their rust. Masood’s rallying call over the last fortnight has been 20 wickets; the two have managed 29 in three days of bowling. You’d have to require incredible commitment to the bit if you handed them 90 consecutive overs for a bit of a laugh.Sajid, too, gently pushed back against insinuations that his wickets haul was down only to the surfaces. “This wicket isn’t like Multan,” he said. “The ball gets soft after 25-30 overs. In Multan, even with a softer ball, you get assistance from the pitch. This wicket is not like that. There were some good balls, but also poor shots from them. Wickets don’t get given to you here. You have to vary the pace, use the crease, and that’s how I got my wickets.”Forty-two overs into England’s innings, Pakistan finally made a change. With England’s seventh-wicket partnership beginning to blossom, Zahid Mahmood stepped up from Pavilion End. He banged in a long hop to Gus Atkinson, and was pulled away to deep midwicket.Sajid and Noman were no longer bowling together, and everyone could tell.
