England v Pakistan, 3rd Test, Tales of the Unexpected: Pakistan’s Bizarre Capitulation Sets up England’s Assault on Becoming #1

 

England v Pakistan

3^rd Test

Tales of the Unexpected: Pakistan’s Bizarre Capitulation Sets up England’s Assault on Becoming #1

August 9^th  2016

After the great Follow-On Cop-Out, we have had the Declaration Debacle. Both times the usual suspects accused Alistair Cook of everything from the most pusillanimous cowardice, to playing Father Christmas to Misbah’s team of happy warriors. Again, he was accused of throwing away the series by not knowing how to attack. And, again, events proved the critics completely wrong and Alistair Cook totally correct.

In fact, Alistair Cook is just one Test away from taking England to #1 in the ICC Test rankings: avoiding defeat may be enough to go top, winning guarantees it. Yet, despite results, it seems that Alistair Cook’s captaincy is fair game and vilified by (almost) everyone.

In contrast, the Pakistan team and their fans have been a happy bunch and, even as most people were reading the last rites, were convinced that their team could pull off an incredible win in both Tests that they have lost.

There is something very British about talking down your team, about being senselessly critical. We saw it before the 2012 Olympics too, where every story seemed to be a negative one, where the media gave acres of space to anyone who wanted to say that the Games would be an expensive disaster and that no one would turn up. Of course, although the Games had their faults (it is impossible to produce a perfect games), no one who was there can doubt that they were a great success perhaps, for a cricket fan, slightly tempered by the failure to include T20 cricket as a demonstration sport.

However, the vilification that has been poured on Alistair Cook’s handling of the side at times has gone past the reasonable. Like Andrew Strauss before him, he has received the labels “defensive” and “cautious” and nothing that he can do can change that. Even when proved to be absolutely correct in his decisions the pat answer is shot straight back “well he got lucky and did not deserve to get away with it”. When England almost pulled off an astonishing heist in the Oval Test of 2013, the plaudits were all for Michael Clarke for his attacking (read “totally mis-judged”) declaration, despite the fact that England scored more runs, far faster than Australia on that last day and it was not Alistair Cook who was time-wasting desperately at the end).

Alistair Cook belongs to the Clive Lloyd/Viv Richards school of captaincy. He knows that he has the weapons to win and backs his side to do it more often than not. Cook, like Clive Lloyd, does not take unnecessary risks. He likes to grind down his opponent, break his spirit. That much was shown by the way that in the 2^nd Test Pakistan were set a target that went far beyond anything reasonable. It was a West Indian trademark in the great years: even if the opposition was bowled out for 150 in the first innings, rarely enforce the Follow-On; bat again and toy with them – set them 450, 500, a target that they know that they have no hope of getting anywhere near.

Like those great West Indian teams, Alistair Cook was ruthless. He knew that the chances in the 2^nd Test of Pakistan surviving five sessions, or smashing the world record chase were just about zero. He backed his rested bowlers to do the job and they rewarded him by winning the match with a day to spare, despite a session being lost to rain.

At Edgbaston, in the 3^rd Test, the problem was a radically different one. For two days Pakistan had dominated totally on a surface so dead that it should have struggled to produce a result in six days, let alone five. Having been put in and batted at the one point in the match where there was significant help for the bowlers – and even then, it was not a great deal – and failed to get to 300, at the end of Day 2, England were on their backs and desperately trying to protect their collective throat from a mortal blow. At 257-2, with one ball of the day left, in reply to England’s 297, you could see a Pakistan lead of at least 150, probably 200, possibly even 250. England should have been batted out of the game and would have been likely to need to bat two days to save it. With Azhar Ali 139* and Younis settling-in nicely, it should have been curtains.

From that ball on though, just about everything went England’s way. Why did Azhar Ali guide an fairly inoffensive ball outside off straight to Alistair Cook from the last ball of the day? It confirmed the increasing suspicion that Chris Woakes has more than a touch of Ian Botham about him: things just happen around him, with no reasonable explanation. Those fans with longer memories will remember that Ian Botham’s introduction to Test cricket was fairly chastening: although he came back to take five wickets, his first spell was very roughly dealt with and his batting showed very little initially. Botham had the luck that the selectors stuck with him and repaid their faith once he started to believe in his own ability. In contrast, Chris Woakes has just had the odd Test over the last three years to make a case until finally given a run in the side: now it is hard to imagine the side without him.

The only moment when you could just imagine things going wrong was during the sixth wicket stand of 62: once it was broken, Pakistan seemed broken too. Only an annoying last-wicket stand got the lead over 100, but it was evident that the momentum had shifted.

When England’s first wicket pair got England in the black without great scares, the unthinkable started to become thinkable: might there be time for England to get far enough ahead and declare?

What was good to see was the way that Geoff Boycott purred over Alex Hales’s innings. Hales was patient. He started slowly, he avoided mistakes and he accelerated, giving England just the start that they needed. Hales is another player who is coming in for unfair opprobrium from the fans, who forget that he has had golden form in Tests and ODIs over the last few months, marred only by the lack of a maiden Test century. His first fifty of the series will not have silenced the doubters, but it at least eases the pressure on him and on the selectors.

Misbah seemed to get it all wrong. When Cook and Hales fell in three balls, early in Day 4, he switched quickly to all-out defence to stop England scoring. Perhaps he reasoned that it was the way to provoke a collapse, but it seemed to be more a fear of letting England set a target and thus exposing Pakistan to defeat. However, with fears about the ability of Vince and Ballance to perform at this level, a period of all-out attack might have let some runs flow, but could have also led to three or four wickets falling quickly. A century partnership steadied nerves and allowed James Vince another opportunity to count past 42 (an opportunity that, of course, he spurned): 9, 35, 10, 0, 16, 42, 18, 39 & 42 – in six of his nine Test innings he has got in, got set, looked good… and got out. Time is running out for him and the calls for Adil Rashid to replace him at The Oval are only getting louder, with even the England management publicly considering this option.

However, with every one of the top five making a contribution and the bowlers tiring, Pakistan were left incredibly vulnerable to a counter-attack. Once Bairstow and Moeen Ali had played themselves in, the bowlers were ripe for taking. After a relatively sedate start of a 50 partnership off 69 balls, the next hundred runs took 101 balls. It was Operation Annihilation again and, again, Yasir Shah was left to take the heat. 43-4-172-2. Seventy overs in the match for a return of 3-236: he might have won Pakistan the 1^st Test, but the contest has got more and more uneven since: match figures of 10-141 in that match, have been followed by combined figures of 4-502 in the 2^nd and 3^rd Tests. He has bowled 70 overs more than any other bowler in the series, averaging 32 per innings and is looking less and less effective. As the strike and stock bowler in a 4-man attack, he has been bowled into the ground and, more than anything, that mis-handling has turned the series. From a Pakistan point of view, their hopes of levelling the series and becoming the ICC’s #1 Test side depend on whether or not he can recover from such mega-abuse in time for the Final Test. If England bat and Yasir Shah is sent straight back into the attack, his stamina will be sorely tried.

The ultimate humiliation was for Yasir Shah to be given the first over in the morning, with a declaration in the offing and Alistair Cook being condemned for batting on, only to see twenty runs come off it: singles for Moeen and Bairstow, followed by 6 6 4 2 for Moeen. It was tantamount to a Pakistani declaration of surrender. Instead of taking 40 minutes out of the game, batting on in the morning cost just four overs, plus two for the change of innings.

Even after England had pulverised the Pakistani bowlers and allowed themselves almost a full day to bowl, there was no excuse for what followed.

At Lunch, Pakistan needed 264 to win from 62 overs, with nine wickets in hand and the ball was doing absolutely nothing for the bowlers. It was most definitely on. There was plenty of good bowling (Stuart Broad finished his second spell with the remarkable figures of 10-5-9-1). Plenty of pressure. Just nothing to suggest that wickets would fall. Not even Chris Woakes was making things happen.

And your spinner, your main hope of taking wickets, is short on confidence and many fans – and even some pundits – are asking why he is even in the side.

Cue Moeen Ali. A magic ball. An edge to slip. Thanks skipper! And the floodgates opened. 79-1 becomes a barely credible 151-9.

Why? There is no reasonable explanation. Collective panic?

The fact that the Pakistani last-wicket pair could put on 50 together with some comfort and, briefly, raise hopes that Pakistan could save the match, should put some of their colleagues to shame. There was nothing wrong with the pitch.

From 257-2 with one ball left of Day 2, Pakistan somehow contrived to lose their next 17 wickets for 294 runs. After the hammering at Old Trafford, to pass from the point of dominating the Test, to a humiliating defeat must hit Pakistani morale hard.

From being reviled after two, poor dismissals in the 2^nd Test and an anaemic bowling display, Moeen Ali has picked up another Man of the Match award and averages 58.7 with the bat and has 9 wickets at 39.3 with the ball in this series, at a strike rate of 54: better than Stuart Broad and only marginally inferior to Jimmy Anderson. It almost makes you wonder of he is strategically ineffective for a time to make batsmen take him too lightly and surrender their wickets to him!

The scene now shifts to The Oval, with the #1 ranking in Tests up for grabs. There are so many scenarios that they would take up a couple of pages of A4 but, a summary is this:

·        If England win the Test, they are guaranteed to go top of the ICC Test table.

o   Unless India win their last two Tests in the Caribbean, or Australia win the 3^rd Test in Sri Lanka, England will top the table if they avoid defeat at The Oval.

o   If Pakistan win the Test, they go top unless India win their last two Tests in the Caribbean, or Australia win the 3^rd Test in Sri Lanka and England will stay fourth in the table.