Three cheers for Pakistan’s unexpected fighters

Frank Worrell’s 1960-61 West Indian side was said to have “lost the series but won Australia”.

If the contest between the teams of Pat Cummins and Shan Masood has not quite scaled the heights of that particular contest 62 years ago, Pakistan’s visit has brought far more riches than some expected.

Pakistan rejoice at the fall of David Warner at the SCG.Credit: Getty Images

Since India stormed the Gabba to secure a memorable series win here in 2020-21, three other touring teams have come to Australia and been obliterated.

England were so poor in the 2021-22 Ashes summer that Stuart Broad talked about it as a void series, the West Indies were brushed aside in a couple of weeks in 2022, and South Africa only avoided a 0-3 sweep last year due to the Sydney rain that brought day two to an early finish.

Against that backdrop, Pakistan have done rather better, summed up by how the canny off-spinner Salman Ali Agha has twice found a way past David Warner, this time landing a delivery of jump and turn to send the opener packing for 34 in his final Test match.

But for some shoddy catching – Abdullah Shafique’s howlers in Melbourne were reprised at the SCG by the decision to place the debutant Saim Ayub at first slip, whereupon he shelled a simple chance offered by Warner on 20 – the Australians may well have reached the third Test needing a win to seal the series.

There had been considerable chaos around the Pakistan set-up before the tour. Underperformance at the ODI World Cup in India had led to a raft of backroom changes, installing the quotable Mohammad Hafeez as coach and team director and even seeing the disgraced Salman Butt hired as a selection consultant before public outcry forced his removal.

Tellingly, though, the vision of the articulate captain Masood – informed partly by his experiences of “Bazball” in English cricket, where he is captain of Yorkshire – has shone across the tour, especially when the tourists were about half an hour of batting away from achieving a surprise victory in Melbourne.

After Pakistan’s batters ambled along at around two runs an over in Perth, Masood made it plain that he wanted more proactive intent shown at the MCG, and the uplift in scoring nearly brought a win.

Similarly, the touring side’s determination not to go quietly was writ large across Aamir Jamal’s magnificent innings of 82 at No.9 on the opening day, an effort that pushed the Pakistanis from a probable score of around 200 to 300 plus. By imposing that pressure, Jamal forced Cummins into the sort of binary bouncer tactics that led to trouble during the Ashes last year.

Pakistan captain Shan Masood congratulates David Warner on his final Test.Credit: Getty Images

In truth, Pakistan might have done better still if allowed to start their tour in Western Australia, the venue of the first Test. The chance to play a warm-up game at the WACA Ground, or even on one of Perth’s many pacy and true club surfaces, would have offered infinitely better preparation than the pudding of a surface unveiled for them at Canberra’s Manuka Oval.

Hafeez’s protest about technology made plenty of headlines after the MCG match, but his more apt criticism was for the Canberra pitch – the sort of preparation Australian teams have long complained about when travelling to India.

Even so, Pakistan’s players have given their supporters plenty to cheer for, and much too for Australian fans to admire. Warner, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne had to work mighty hard on day two to set a platform for the Australian innings, with the bowling and Masood’s fields occasionally resembling the kinds of pincer tactics employed by Ben Stokes and company in England during the Ashes.

Pakistan’s performances have been watched by handsome crowds in Melbourne and Sydney, after a slimmer than hoped for crowd at Perth’s cavernous Optus Stadium.

The MCG Test was witnessed by 164,835 spectators, the best attended Boxing Day Test involving Pakistan and the second best for a Pakistan Test at the MCG, after 169,492 turned up in January 1977. Crowds for the first two days of the SCG Test topped 60,000 – again with a vocal Pakistani contingent.

So while Masood’s team have not quite left us with moments like the first tied Test in Brisbane, Ken Mackay and Lindsay Kline in Adelaide and a breathless home win in the last game in Melbourne, they have given plenty of reason to hope for enthralling Test matches outside the big three clique of India, England and Australia.

When Worrell and Richie Benaud spoke at the MCG after that last Test in 1961, the crowd broke out in a spontaneous rendition of For He’s A Jolly Good Fellow to honour Worrell. Masood and company will merit similar good wishes.

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