Pace bowlers fail to make inroads in Amir’s absence
Pakistan quicks take one wicket in final warm-up Tourists are hoping for reverse swing at Lord’s
In the Ashes, Australia’s bowlers, brandishing their superior speed, targeted the heads and throats of England’s batsmen. If any of them hung around for very long, which they seldom did, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins bounced them out.
Pakistan, in the first Test against England at Lord’s on Thursday, will choose a different focal point for their attack: English pads and stumps. It worked superlatively for New Zealand’s left-arm swing bowler Trent Boult, when he ran through England in a single spell at the start of their last series. Boult tumbled out England for 58 before they worked out that they had to play forward, late and straight.
If Pakistan, with their rather thin batting line-up, are to win the first Test – or the second at Headingley – their left-arm swing bowler Mohammad Amir is going to have to replicate Boult. In Amir’s absence Pakistan’s pace attack took one wicket in their last warm-up game against a weakened Leicestershire.
Amir has run through England at Lord’s before, but eight years have passed since he enjoyed his hour of triumph, which was followed by a five-year ban. In 2010 his swing, when he was not deliberately noballing, reduced England to 102 for seven – and cricket offers no sight more thrilling than a left-arm bowler swinging the ball in a paralysing parabola.
Since his ban Amir has not had so many magic spells as he did before it: the occupational hazard of tendonitis in his knees is no help. Only once has he taken five wickets in a Test innings in the second phase of his career, but in Ireland’s inaugural Test a week ago, Mickey Arthur, Pakistan’s head coach, said he saw signs of Amir returning to his best.
Pakistan’s other two pace bowlers will also be pitching a full length – which is what three of England’s top four batsmen do not like. Alastair Cook, Mark Stoneman and Dawid Malan all prefer to play from the crease, or at most half-forward. So if Thursday morning brings cloud-cover over Lord’s, and Pakistan bowl, it will be a spicy contest.
Mohammad Abbas was Pakistan’s only pace bowler to take a Leicestershire wicket, which was a bit ironic as he is an overseas player for the county this summer.
Rahat Ali is another left-armer, like Amir, who took four wickets when Pakistan defeated England at Lord’s two years ago. He has not improved notably since then, but he swung the new ball yesterday on a full length, if not paralysingly late.
In the absence of a fast bowler who can bang the ball in short, Pakistan need the ball either to swing or reverse-swing. Arthur says all his bowlers can make it reverse, but there was no chance to do it in Ireland because the Malahide ground started damp and remained so. Lord’s drainage, on the other hand, will expedite the process of roughing up one side of the ball.
Flamboyant all-rounder Faheem Ashraf was quick enough to hit Ateeq Javid flush on the helmet. Javid carried on to reach 50 before retiring, then said he found it dangerous to hit the young wrist-spinner Shadab Khan towards extra cover and much safer toward mid-on.
Shadab has novelty on his side, as Yasir Shah did when he took 10 wickets at Lord’s last time.