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Haris Rauf ruled out of remaining two Tests against England
The Pakistan fast bowler strained his quad on the first day of his debut Test in Rawalpindi
Pakistan fast bowler Haris Rauf has been ruled out of the remainder of the Test series against England*. The 29-year old, who made his debut in the first Test , stepped on the ball while fielding on the first day in Rawalpindi, leading to a grade-II strain in his right quad.
Rauf was sent for MRI scans and did not bowl again for the rest of the game. He endured a forgettable debut, conceding 78 runs in 13 overs, and was the most expensive fast bowler on the first day when England scored 506 runs. He batted in both of Pakistan's innings and made scores of 12 and 0.
Rauf will now travel to Lahore where he will begin his rehabilitation at the National High Performance Centre.
Rauf's injury, coupled with Shaheen Afridi's unavailability this series, potentially opens the door for Pakistan calling up a fast bowler from outside the 18-man squad initially named for these three Tests. Mohammad Wasim Jnr is the only other specialist in that group, but in Hasan Ali and Mohammad Abbas, Pakistan have options to turn to from outside those ranks.
Wasim's inclusion would mean yet another debut for a Pakistan player this series, with four new caps handed out in Rawalpindi. As such, the experience the likes of Abbas and Hasan provide could be factors favouring their involvement. Mohammad Ali and Zahid Mahmood, too, had indifferent performances in Rawalpindi, with the legspinner Mahmood conceding 235 runs in the first innings, the highest ever for a debutant. He did pick up four wickets though.
That means a like-for-like replacement for Rauf is possible, though whether Pakistan choose to go into their second successive Test without an established allrounder remains an open question. Faheem Ashraf and Mohammad Nawaz are both part of the squad, and picking either would invariably lead to a rejig of the side's balance in Multan. In Rawalpindi, Pakistan went with four specialist bowlers, though that elongated a tail that had Rauf himself coming in at No. 8, with Naseem Shah, Ali and Mahmood to follow.
The second Test starts on December 9 in Multan and the third on December 17 in Karachi.
Pakistan's craven conservatism no match for England team on a mission
Determination not to lose at all costs defeats the purpose of inviting the big teams to play
It was a scene of high comedy, and yet also the most succinctly damaging assessment of where Pakistan's Test cricket sits. With half an hour to go in the Test and the sun sinking rapidly beneath the Shoaib Akhtar Enclosure, No. 11 Mohammad Ali decided to pop off to the bathroom, timing it to coincide with the end of the final drinks break, desperate to drain a few more seconds out of this Test match.
As fourth umpire Asif Yaqoob frogmarched Ali swiftly back to the middle as England waited impatiently to finish Pakistan off, the optics were brutal: Pakistan would literally rather hide in the toilet than set up to win a Test match.
Early winter had just crept in and cricket season was starting. The square at Rawalpindi Cricket Ground was just about ready, having seen off a first-class season that offered an engrossing contest between bat and ball. This was the first time this particular strip would be used for a Test match since the format returned to Pakistan in 2019, and it couldn't look readier. There was enough grass on this wicket to suggest lessons had been learned from the debacle nine months ago, when this venue had accumulated 1,177 runs and one demerit point.
The next morning, the England contingent landed at Islamabad airport from their training base in Abu Dhabi to presidential-style security and cordoned-off roads. Amid the frenzied activity around the visitors, it was easy to miss something equally significant taking place at the place they'd spend much of the next week. By the time they arrived at the cricket ground, there wasn't a blade of grass to be seen on the surface.
Over the next five days, England ensured Pakistan were left as nakedly exposed as the pitch they had prepared. Showing what was possible even in the most unconducive conditions, England found one more move every time it seemed Pakistan had set them up for stalemate.
When Pakistan pushed their field out, England simply hit it over them. When Pakistan looked to shut up shop, England brought their fielders up so close it would have breached 2020's social distancing guidelines. When the ball didn't swing, England scuffed it up by thumping it short into the lifeless surface, reaping the rewards with late movement on the fifth afternoon. No sooner had Pakistan found a hiding place than England flushed them back out yet again. Pakistan took every precaution to prevent what they feared would be a humiliating defeat, and yet, the victory England conjured up was more chastening than any three-day thumping could have been.
Pakistan have spent the best part of two decades trying to lure the big teams, or the "Western bloc", as Ramiz Raja pointedly put it last year, back home. So when a deal was struck that saw Australia, England and New Zealand agree to play Test cricket in Pakistan in the space of ten months, it was more than either fans or administrators could have imagined in their wildest dreams just a few years earlier. Since then, however, the surfaces Pakistan has prepared for these series would make younger fans in Pakistan wonder what they'd been missing anyway. What was the point of playing at home against the best teams if it was deliberately designed to be the worst possible spectacle?
Before being appointed chairman, Ramiz had one of the most-followed YouTube channels in Pakistan, known for regularly entreating the side to play with more daleri (bravery) and lambasting them when they didn't. That fiery, truculent attitude was reflected in his first press conference since becoming chairman, and he cannot be accused of changing his tune in the following months.
Repeatedly, however, this Pakistan side under the stewardship of Ramiz, Babar Azam and this team management have shown that they're willing to wound, but afraid to strike. The neutralisation of the first Test against Australia could be justified to some extent, what with Australia's pace battery and Pakistan missing key fast-bowling personnel. But the three Tests that followed have shown it up for the cravenly conservative template that it was, rather than the shrewd tactic the team management wanted us to believe.
Australia is a kind of mythical sea-monster for Ramiz, anyway, one to be spoken of in hushed tones rather than competed with in full flow, but against an England side whose seam attack posed none of the same menace, Pakistan could not find the daleri within themselves to compete on even terms.
Bazball might be as tired a cliché as daleri, but at least England actually stay the course with it. Pakistan spent the previous evening insisting they were here to win this match, suddenly finding their voices after England's munificent declaration seemed to take a draw out of the equation.
But on the fifth morning, that Pakistan talk of victory felt increasingly like a fever dream. Out there in reality, they spent the first 14 overs scoring just 13 runs, with England bowling eight maidens in the 12 overs before drinks. James Anderson and Ollie Robinson kept the pressure, and the field, up, while Pakistan blocked, nudged and left. They had made clear they wanted nothing less than a draw from this match, and despite England's best offers, nothing more than that, either. If ever there was an exhibition of contrasts - in style, philosophy and ambition - this Test was it.
It isn't just the chairman though. Babar Azam's own penchant for conservatism, much like his presence in the Pakistan side, straddles all three formats. Mohammad Yousuf was already in Multan today, apparently to have a chat with the pitch curator. Saqlain Mushtaq is likely figuring out how to balance the scales of cosmic justice rather than balance the team he improbably finds himself in charge of. The circlejerk of enablement is complete.
Even when Pakistan took control of individual passages of play, England recognised them for the aberrations that they were. With Azhar Ali, a man living on borrowed time anyway but the only recognised batter standing between England and an inexplicably long Pakistani tail, England brought one more fielder up. When he did fall with the job unfinished - as he was destined to, perhaps, as his career drags towards its unseemly close - Pakistan's defences were fatally breached.
Soon, England would have 11 fielders close to the bat as they scrambled to triumph in a game Pakistan had tried to ensure was unwinnable (but more importantly, unlosable). Rawalpindi might be a stone's throw from the seat of power in Pakistan, the place where every decision that matters to this country is made. But it was Ben Stokes' men who felt at home against a Pakistan set-up that, at present, barely seem able to comprehend England's philosophy, let alone replicate it.
England were the ones struck down by illness before the start of this Test, but the malaise that afflicts Pakistan shows no signs of being short-term.
Have all four openers scored centuries in a Test before Rawalpindi?
And what's the record for most hundreds scored in a Test?
Both sets of openers scored centuries in the first innings in the Rawalpindi Test. Has this ever happened before? asked Akshay Dhargalkar from the United States
That achievement by all four openers in the first innings in Rawalpindi is indeed unique. There's one other Test in which all four openers made hundreds - in Port-of-Spain in 1947-48 - but England's were spread over the first innings (140 by the debutant Billy Griffith) and the second (133 by Jack Robertson). West Indies' hundreds were scored by George Carew, in his second Test 13 years after bagging a duck in his first, and Andy Ganteaume, who famously never played another Test match.
The nearest approach to twin centuries in both first innings of a Test came in the match between Australia and India in Sydney in 1985-86, when Sunil Gavaskar made 172, Kris Srikkanth 116, and David Boon 131… but Geoff Marsh fell just short with 92.
England had 174 on the board by lunch on the first day at Rawalpindi, and 332 by tea. Were these both records? asked Jamie Kelly from England
For this sort of question I needed to consult the Melbourne statistical wizard Charles Davis, who has made a study of hundreds of old scorebooks. He says, of England's lunch score on the first day in Rawalpindi, "174 is second, after 179 for 1 by South Africa against Australia in Johannesburg in 1902-03. That involved about 41 overs, whereas England faced only 27. Earlier that year in the Ashes, Australia made 173 for 1 off 33 overs at Old Trafford, an innings which included Victor Trumper famously making a century before lunch."
As for 332 for 3 by tea, Charles says: "The highest with a conventional tea break appears to be 355 for 2 (in 195 minutes) by Australia against South Africa in Sydney in 1910-11, the day they made 494 in a five-hour day. England's 332 is fifth, but the highest since 1936. The early records were aided by high over rates."
In that Sydney match, Australia ended the day at 494 for 6, the opening-day record broken by England (506 for 4) in Rawalpindi. Only Sri Lanka, with 509 for 9 against Bangladesh in Colombo in 2002, have ever made more runs on any day of a Test match.
There were seven individual centuries in the Rawalpindi Test. What's the record? asked Geoff from the United States
The seven centuries scored in Rawalpindi was one short of the Test record of eight, set by West Indies and South Africa in Antigua in 2005, and equalled by Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in Galle in 2012-13.
There have been two first-class matches that contained nine centuries, both of them in India: the Ranji Trophy semi-final between Bombay and Maharashtra in Poona in 1948-49, and the 1986-87 Duleep Trophy final between West Zone and South Zone in Mumbai.
Has anyone conceded more runs on their Test debut than Zahid Mahmood did in Rawalpindi? asked Geoffrey Atkinson from England
The 34-year-old legspinner Zahid Mahmood had an expensive debut in Rawalpindi.
In the first innings he took 4 for 235: no debutant had previously conceded more than 222 runs in an innings, the fate which befell Sri Lanka's Suraj Randiv, against India in Colombo in 2010. Two other bowlers have conceded more than 200 runs in an innings on debut: Jason Krejza took 8 for 215 for Australia against India in Nagpur in 2008-09, while Omari Banks had 3 for 204 for West Indies vs Australia in Bridgetown in May 2003.
In the second innings, Zahid conceded 84 more runs, for a match total of 319. The only debutant to have conceded more is Krejza, who followed his 8 for 215 in Nagpur with 4 for 143, for a (very) grand total of 358 runs. For that list, click here.
Mitchell Starc dismissed Tagenarine Chanderpaul in Perth, and he'd previously got Shivnarine Chanderpaul out in Tests too. Has anyone else dismissed a father and son in Tests? asked Chris Patterson from Australia
You're right that the Australian fast bowler Mitchell Starc bowled the West Indian debutant Tagenarine Chanderpaul in the Test that finished at the weekend in Perth - and back in 2012, in one of his early Tests, he trapped Shivnarine Chanderpaul lbw in Dominica.
The Chanderpauls played Tests less than eight years apart. The only father-and-son combination to beat that are the New Zealanders Lance Cairns, who played his last Test late in 1985, and his son Chris Cairns, who made his debut just under four years later in November 1989. Not surprisingly, perhaps, they are the only other father and son to be dismissed by the same bowler in Tests: both of them were out to Ian Botham and Wasim Akram. The West Indian spinner Roger Harper dismissed both Cairnses in one-day internationals.
Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo's stats team helped with some of the above answers.
Pakistan team denied visas to travel to India for T20 World Cup for the Blind
"Indian team very, very disappointed they are not coming," says president of Cricket Association for the Blind in India
Pakistan's cricket team has been denied visas to travel to India for the ongoing T20 World Cup for the Blind. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Pakistan Blind Cricket Council (PBCC) said that the team could not get clearance from the Ministry of External Affairs in India.
"This unfortunate incident has left the Pakistan blind cricket team in the lurch," the PBCC said. "It was highly likely that Pakistan and India would have locked horns in the final of ongoing World Cup and considering the current form of the Green Shirts, Pakistan had high chances to win the World Cup."
The PBCC said "it strongly condemns this discriminating act of India as sports should be above regional politics".
"Our counterpart in India pleaded with their government for Pakistan's clearance but nothing was heard," the statement said. "This discriminating act will have serious consequences on global blind cricket as we at the World Blind Cricket will take stern action against them and may not allow India to host future international events."
"Indian team very, very disappointed they are not coming"
Mahantesh GK, the president of Cricket Association for the Blind in India (CABI), told ESPNcricinfo that the hosts were "very, very disappointed" about the Pakistan team not making it to the tournament. "I heard from our colleagues from Pakistan that they didn't couldn't get the visas; they had received this afternoon a call from the Indian High Commission saying that they wouldn't be able to process the visas," Mahantesh said. "It is very, very unfortunate because yesterday we had the inauguration [of the tournament]. Pakistan are one of the best teams and we were keen to play with them. The Indian team is very, very disappointed that they are not coming."
Mahantesh said CABI had approached the concerned ministries in the Indian government - the Ministry of External Affairs, and the Ministry of Home Affairs - regarding facilitating the visas.
CABI had been optimistic about the Pakistan team travelling to India for the World Cup, Mahantesh said, because they had played it India in 2012 and 2017. "But today when I heard Pakistan team had not got the clearance, it was a bit shocking."
CABI will release an updated tournament schedule for the touranment.
Apart from India, the remaining participating teams are Bangladesh, Australia, Sri Lanka, Nepal and South Africa. Pakistan had finished second in the previous T20 World Cup for the Blind. The current tournament is being played from December 5 to 17, in Faridabad, Delhi, Mumbai, Indore and Bengaluru, where the final will be held.
80.119 SRY