Aqib and Masood have made it clear that the spin strategy is not short-term, but is it really a fix?
Danyal Rasool27-Jan-2025There has been lots of glorious myth-making of Pakistani fast-bowling. Of Sarfraz Nawaz, wily inventor of a new art no one new anything about. Of Imran Khan running in open chested, grace and effectiveness in equal measure, all culminating in a gazelle like gallop, creating the cricketer that led Pakistan’s greatest ever side. Of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, whose swing and accuracy were as addictively watchable as they were devastating, of Shoaib Akhtar, a high-speed train in a world of freight locomotives. The legends are passed on from one generation to another, and, for much of the region’s cricketing history, marked Pakistan out as the exception to the rule that the sub-continent was a land of spin-bowling specialists.The stories we tell of Sajid Khan and Noman Ali will be different, and nowhere near as enduring. After years of repeated failures to develop a home template in line with the self-image Pakistan wish to live up to, the current setup – led in part by Aqib Javed, member of Pakistan’s selection panel and all-format interim coach – dispensed with the idealism and injected realpolitik into their philosophy. The fast bowlers weren’t taking 20 wickets, and all attempts to prepare seam-friendly wickets had failed, as, seemingly, had the ability and willingness of many of their fast bowlers to actually play Test matches.Related
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Their new idea was as brilliant as it was simple, hiding in plain sight. Pakistan had wizened old fingerspinners who always seemed to do well in spin-conducive conditions in domestic cricket. So, by way of fans and heaters, windbreakers and greenhouses, they prepared surfaces that ragged from day one, where fast bowlers were rendered as superfluous as horse-drawn carriages; seamers have bowled 17 overs for Pakistan in their last four Tests, and taken one wicket. Bat first, get the ball ragging, rinse, repeat.Pakistan finished the World Test Championship cycle at the bottom•AFP/Getty ImagesAnd supporters, despite disgruntlement from some quarters, were happy to sacrifice playing style at the altar of effectiveness. Drawbacks, such as what it meant for Pakistan’s fast bowling future, or the toll it would take on batters’ confidence and techniques could be ignored. Their captain Shan Masood went far enough to call it a “sacrifice” that the batters and fast bowlers were making. However, they had to win. That was the social contract.But if your only selling point is that the trains run on time, you do at the very least have to ensure the trains do, in fact, run on time. Over the past two days, West Indies demonstrated to Pakistan the precarity of that assumption. Any denunciation of Pakistan’s playing style over the past three Tests largely circled around whether these were sporting wickets of if they were doing Pakistan’s long-term prospects hard; that victory would be achieved was almost assumed. Before this Test, Aqib was already referencing the next World Test Championship cycle and how Pakistan would replicate these wickets because they needed to win “all their Test matches” at home to qualify for the final.Yet, results – on these surfaces more than perhaps any other – can tilt substantially on the flip of a coin. Pakistan were on the right side of it in two of the first three Test matches they won this way, but no pitch can guarantee you won’t have to bat fourth. And while three out of four wins is a vastly improved Test run than any Pakistan have managed at home in years, West Indies hoisting Pakistan by their own petard in Multan was a reminder of how few data points we have to extrapolate meaningfully into the future. Brendon McCullum’s “Bazball” approach to the England Test side began with a similar uptick in results to equally wild optimism over the first season, but longer sample sizes can provide surprisingly sobering reality checks.Pakistan were willing to ignore drawbacks of playing on a turner – like the toll it would take on batters’ confidence•AFP/Getty ImagesBut Pakistan have, to their credit, provided consistent clarity on their future intentions. An on-paper soft draw over the next cycle has encouraged Pakistan to dream of a possible slot at the WTC final in 2027, with the path invariably running through home wins. Masood backed his coach up, promising domestic cricket on similar pitches to help batters cope with opposition spin better.But Pakistan have to guard against chasing their own tails here; they may find they’re preparing for the season just passed than the one that follows. This was billed as the “bumper home Test season” with seven home games across three series, but it has come and gone, with their spin strategy “a new one for our batters, too” as Masood said. It may not be quite as new for them when the next season does roll around.Pakistan are scheduled to host South Africa later this year and then welcome Sri Lanka – a side that, in any case, they are unlikely to want to curate uber-spin tracks for – for two Tests in 2026. A year of honing batters’ spin techniques on pitches that have nothing for red-ball quicks is unlikely to be of much assistance when they travel away between March and August next year, five of which come in West Indies and England. Not to mention, of course, that in Pakistan, where the domestic red-ball season is jostled around at the mercy of different priorities, two years might as well be an epoch.The most flippant criticism of Aqibball, as it has come to be known, is that it was a short-term fix. But Aqib and Masood have made clear they don’t view it as short term, and Jomel Warrican’s West Indies showed them it may not necessarily even be a fix.