It was all over by prayers. Afternoon prayers, that is. Test cricket on a Friday in Pakistan must defer to lunchtime supplications and so the morning session is extended by thirty minutes as a result. In any event, the game was done and dusted well before then, Pakistan having spun England to a dizzying defeat, winning the match and levelling the series by the margin of 152 runs.
After the match, Ben Stokes revealed that he had apologised to the team on the third evening after a rare show of frustration in the field, after two dropped catches in three balls when Pakistan’s lead was still under 200. Any frustration was certainly understandable, though, as it was at that moment the game slipped beyond England’s grasp, leaving them too much to do on the fourth day.
“I actually apologised to the group up there last night,” Stokes said after the game. “It’s the first time in my captaincy that I’ve let my emotions show in my body language, with how I was feeling as the game was unfolding. I owned up to that, and I’m very annoyed at myself for letting that out.
“It’s something that I don’t want to do, or be seen to be doing. No one means to drop catches, but it just proves how important catches are out in these subcontinent conditions, because they don’t come along that often. So I apologised to the group and said that was poor of me. I was a tired and grumpy old man last night. You won’t see that happen again.”
In contrast, Stokes offered a moment of inadvertent high comedy on the fourth morning when charging down the pitch to the left-arm spinner, Noman Ali, and attempting a huge hit to leg, only to lose the grip on his bat. The bat flew a distance away towards where the ball should have gone, while Stokes, three yards out of his ground, and on his knees by this stage, was stranded helplessly and stumped.
Stokes’s bat heads where the ball should have as Rizwan removes the bails
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It rather summed up the reversal of fortunes for both captains in this second Test. Stokes had watched from the sidelines with pride after the amazing win in the first, while all the questions descended on Shan Masood. Without a win in six matches as captain, Masood was under significant pressure coming into this game and he needed a win desperately, not just for his own leadership but also for the general health of cricket here.
This proud cricketing nation have been in the doldrums, without a win for over a year in Test cricket and winless for more than three years at home — a period of three years, eight months and eleven days to be precise. A measure of their desperation was the gamble they took on the reused pitch and the selection of a solitary seamer, a gamble that paid off handsomely in the end thanks, in no small part, to winning the toss.
Brendon McCullum made no complaint about the pitch but described the toss as a significant advantage, which it was. Having won it, Pakistan’s main spinners, Sajid Khan and Noman, made full use of it, sharing all 20 wickets to fall. Spinners have taken all 20 wickets for Pakistan before, for example at Lahore in 1987, when the great Abdul Qadir took 13 wickets in the game to help defeat England, supported by Tauseef Ahmed and Iqbal Qasim.
Noman, 38, returned career-best figures of eight for 46
FAISAL KAREEM/EPA
This time, it was a deadly duo and a fine combination they proved to be: spinning the ball opposite ways, with Sajid providing fizz and energy and Noman flighting the ball beautifully. Sajid dominated the first innings, with seven wickets, but was upstaged by his partner Noman in the second, who took eight for 46 in 16.3 overs, his best figures in Tests. Noman took eleven wickets in the game, and Sajid took nine, a remarkable vindication of their selections and the decision to attack England with spin.
It was Sajid who started the rot on the fourth morning when he dismissed Ollie Pope caught and bowled with his second ball. This was a really poor choice of shot from Pope, who had been bowled through the gate by Sajid in the first innings, and who was suckered into trying to drive through the off side against the spin again. After doing so, Pope put his right glove to his head as if to say, “what have I done, there?,” and he walked off shaking his head so hard it was a surprise it did not fly from its moorings.
Pope shook his head after his soft dismissal started England’s final-day collapse
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If England were to mount a challenge then Joe Root, their best player, had to play a part but he followed Pope three overs later, leg-before sweeping Noman. It was a marginal call on whether it hit the front pad outside the line of off stump but as ever with DRS reviews, the on-field call proved vital. Root could have no complaints and Pakistan’s reaction, full of delight, was telling. Two big wickets had fallen in the opening 20 minutes.
Two more wickets fell in a similar timeframe. Harry Brook tried to pull a quicker ball from Noman but, palpably leg-before, picked the wrong ball to do so as it scooted through low and then Jamie Smith, aiming a huge slog sweep, top-edged to Masood at mid-on. After a fine start to his Test career, Smith endured a difficult game this week. He struggled for runs and dropped a straightforward and vital catch on the fourth day, when the game was still in the balance.
Root was one of multiple England batsmen to get out while sweeping
AKHTAR SOOMRO/REUTERS
All hope had disappeared by this stage, only 40 minutes into play. Stokes, short of game time, lasted for 52 frenetic minutes before the stumping. Bryson Carse clubbed three sixes off Sajid, before edging Noman to slip. After that, Jack Leach was caught short-leg and Shoaib Bashir at silly point to spark the victory celebrations for Pakistan. As ever, England adopted a fight-fire-with-fire approach, which was fair enough in the circumstances on a pitch now into its ninth day of use.
The vindication of Pakistan’s selections and strategy was complete and as well as the two spinners, Kamran Ghulam could reflect on a fine performance, having stepped into Babar Azam’s shoes at No 4. After winning the toss, it was his first-innings hundred that ensured Pakistan’s spinners had enough runs to play with, and he made a vital contribution in the second innings as well.
Masood could enjoy his first win as Pakistan captain at the seventh attempt
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It was a fascinating Test, played in conditions that were unique but by no means unfair. The pitch deteriorated sometime on the third day, but never to the extent that it became a lottery or unplayable and, indeed, produced a contest that was far more watchable than the run-fest the week before.
All eyes now turn to Rawalpindi and the decider. Pakistan will be sure to want to challenge England on a spinning pitch again, but whether these conditions can be replicated remains to be seen.
