‘We had a clear plan’ – Azhar Mahmood puts his spin on Multan pitch

In desperate need of a result following an innings defeat in the first Test, Pakistan have seemingly had a complete change of heart on the sort of pitches they want at home, and opted to use the same one from the first Test. To that end, they have lined up with three spinners, with seam-bowling allrounder Aamer Jamal the only pace outlet.

According to assistant coach Azhar Mahmood, though, this is precisely how Pakistan had planned it all along.

“We had a clear plan of what pitches to prepare for Bangladesh, and what to prepare vs England,” he said on Tuesday. “Our approach was pace wickets against Bangladesh and spin pitches against England. Our instruction to the curator for the first Test was that the ball should spin after the second day. But the pitch didn’t take turn until even the fifth day. Hopefully the ball will begin to take turn on the ninth day.”

If the expectation was that the pitch would take turn from the second day in the first Test, Pakistan’s line-up did not necessarily reflect that. Legspinner Abrar Ahmed was the only specialist spinner in the XI, with Pakistan lining up with Naseem Shah, Shaheen Afridi and Jamal to round the attack out. Now, unless one of the part-timers are thrown the ball, it will be the first time Pakistan play a men’s Test with only one quick bowler.

It wasn’t an attack that left the Test with its reputation enhanced. England piled out 823 for 7, the highest score Pakistan have ever conceded. Captain Shan Masood was critical of the bowlers, and the focus has shifted to finding a way to take 20 wickets by any means necessary.

“You have to take 20 wickets,” Mahmood said. “We thought about how we’re going to take those. We thought that if we use that pitch, the thinking was how do we take 20 wickets against England and we thought spin was the way to do it.

“The players who are coming in are experienced. They are all experienced and have been playing first-class cricket for a while. The best option is to play players at home on pitches they are used to, so I don’t think there’ll be that much pressure on that.”

“Pakistan has so much cricket coming that the selection committee decided to give Babar a rest, because Pakistan have to go to Australia, Zimbabwe and South Africa”

Azhar Mahmood on Babar Azam being omitted from the Test squad

While each of the incoming spinners – Zahid Mahmood, Noman Ali and Sajid Khan – have accumulated plenty of first-class experience over the years, none of it has been particularly recent. The Quaid-e-Azam Trophy season hasn’t started yet, meaning these players’ last red-ball involvement was in the previous season – none of them have played a first-class match since January this year. Thrown in against an England side that broke a multitude of records on this very pitch last week, it is not a particularly gentle easing in.

Mahmood also attempted to downplay all the changes from the first Test, particularly the leaving out of Babar Azam, which he insisted was “rest” rather than “drop”.

“Babar is our No. 1 player in terms if technique and ability,” he said. “Pakistan has so much cricket coming that the selection committee decided to give Babar a rest, because Pakistan have to go to Australia, Zimbabwe and South Africa.

“We need to take advantage of our conditions. We announced the team for one Test match because we knew we would have changes. After this we’re flying to Australia to play white-ball cricket. We knew we’d have to rest Shaheen and other important players because we have non-stop cricket for the next six months.”

There may be some scepticism towards Mahmood’s reasoning. None of the upcoming white-ball tours are as significant for Pakistan as a three-match home Test series against England. This is arguably the biggest series for Pakistan in this current season, and there will invariably be questions about why the upcoming white-ball series couldn’t serve as a more appropriate avenue for rotation.

Fielding three spinners in addition to Salman Agha, who Mahmood said in August was a “specialist spinner”, requires a certain degree of confidence that the pitch will take turn. “We left a lot of grass on the pitches and wanted the ball to turn to use the pitch in our favour. Let’s see if it works for us.”