It’s a Malik masterclass
SHORTLY after Pakistan had declared their formidable first innings of the first Test on 523/8, with Shoaib Malik having marked the end of his five-year Test exile with an innings of Burj Khalifa proportions, a falcon was spotted on the outfield at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium, greedily disembowelling its luckless prey in its talons.
Happily for any squeamish onlookers among the smattering of fans in the vicinity, Adil Rashid quickly allayed concerns about his whereabouts by taking his place on the England dressing-room balcony.
He, too, had displayed guts on the second day of the first Test – of the blood and gore variety, alas – as Malik’s career245, the majority compiled in a fifth-wicket stand of 248 with Asad Shafiq, condemned him to a cruel slice of Test history.
Rashid’s debut innings figures of 34-0-163-0 were the worst by any bowler in the 138year history of Test cricket. What is more, his efforts usurped those of another legspinner, Bryce McGain, who was tormented to the tune of 0/149 by Herschelle Gibbs in his one and only appearance for Australia at Cape Town in March 2009.
For Gibbs, read Malik, a 10-and-a-half-hour masterclass marked an astonishing return for a man who might not have got a look-in had Azhar Ali been fit.
Shafiq alongside him chipped in with a century of his own, and although both men survived notable moments of good fortune on the first day of the contest, neither offered another sniff of an opportunity until an improbable clatter of wickets after tea.
At that point, fatigue and the impending declaration enabled England’s toiling seamers to massage their stats, in particular Ben Stokes, who emerged with the oddly respectable figures of 4/57.
The Malik-Shafiq partnership was a fifth-wicket record for Pakistan in Tests against England, beating the 197-run stand at Lord’s between Javed Burki and Nasim-ul-Ghani that had stood since 1962.
It continued their run of staggering batting form in Tests in Abu Dhabi, where they have never yet lost a match and where they have now recorded 11 hundreds in their last two-and-a-half Tests, dating back to the visit of Australia last October.
Pakistan are past masters of batting in the UAE, having developed an innings tempo that is perfectly suited to the brutal conditions.
They were content to wear England’s bowlers down for hours on end before latching on to the opportunities to make their dominance count.
Between them, Malik and Shafiq struck 34 fours and four sixes, 160 runs in boundaries, a testament to their patience and ability to cash in.
Malik, in particular, batted with the insouciance of a man in utter command of the attack and the conditions, and Rashid bore the brunt of his aggression.
The declaration left England needing to bat out 23 overs in the day, a task that put a particular spotlight on Moeen Ali, whose 30 wicketless overs weren’t exactly the ideal way to focus his mind for the task ahead.
But to his and Cook’s credit, they made it to the close with the minimum of fuss. Pakistan’s seamers found as little in the conditions as England had extracted, and arguably were even less effective, given their slightly erratic lines of attack. – ESPNcricinfo