Sarfaraz Ahmed took his place behind the stumps as Abrar Ahmed came around the wicket to Shakib Al Hasan, and watched as the left-hander slapped it over cover to hit the winning runs. Pakistan had plumbed new depths, losing 2-0 to a Bangladesh side who had just achieved their greatest series win. It was Pakistan’s fifth Test defeat on the bounce, and they had extended their winless run at home to 10 Test matches.

So in case you wondered how seriously the PCB are taking their worst home run in Test cricket, here was Pakistan’s most experienced Test player being asked to perform pre-competition vapidities for a white-ball tournament sandwiched between Pakistan’s two home Test series this year. There will be no extended training camp before England arrive because this one-day cup finishes on September 29, eight days before the first Test starts. It is the essence of what Test captain Shan Masood called “studying science in preparation for a math exam". With no red-ball domestic cricket before the home series against England, players have nowhere to go to regain form and confidence.

Anyone who hasn’t studied math ahead of an exam will know that sinking feeling of the numbers not adding up. Many of Pakistan’s batters were reacquainted with it over the past fortnight; five of the top seven are arguably short of form. Ahead of the biggest red-ball season for Pakistan this century, three did not play a single red-ball game. Saim Ayub managed just one, Salman Ali Agha two, Saud Shakeel three. Masood’s County Championship contract meant he was the only player with red-ball experience before this season.

It might have been useful for Pakistan’s struggling batters – of whom there were plenty during the Bangladesh series – to drop down to domestic red-ball cricket ahead of England’s visit, but they won’t have that option. The Quaid-e-Azam Trophy is not scheduled to begin until the third week of October, coinciding directly with England’s visit. While September isn’t the ideal month for four-day cricket in most of Pakistan, the QeA did begin on September 10 in 2023, a timeline that, replicated this year, would have provided for the option of competitive red-ball cricket before England arrived.

For all the concerns about the chasm between the calibre of Pakistani domestic and international cricket, it is notable that Pakistan’s Test middle order has been a world-leading source for runs; numbers 5-7 average 43.68 in Tests in this WTC cycle, better than batters in those positions in any other side. Two of the men in these positions – Agha and Shakeel – have the closest proximity to first-class cricket in this Pakistan side. Pakistan batters since the start of 2021 have faced a collective 12,642 domestic red balls; Agha and Shakeel alone are responsible for over a third of them (4670). Red-ball cricket – any red-ball cricket, it would appear – matters.

The visitors, too, played no first-class cricket in the build-up months, though they are a side at a different stage in their evolution, full of experience in the batting order. Mushfiqur Rahim and Shakib are the two longest-serving active Test cricketers in the world, Mominul Haque has played more Tests than any member of the Pakistan side, and only Babar Azam can beat Litton Das’ and Mehidy Hasan Miraz’s Test tallies. The repository of first-class cricket to fall back on simply isn’t there for most of Pakistan’s batters.

The PCB is famous for frenetic, slapdash changes to personnel, and there may yet be more before the first ball of that England series is bowled. What will not change, though, is the number of balls Pakistan’s players face or bowl in red-ball cricket. This year’s schedule has not provided for the first-class tournament to begin until after the conclusion of the season’s fourth Test, with the only cricket to tide them over a jazzed-up domestic one-day tournament.

Pakistan cricket is now little more than a release valve for the dopamine hits sackings and hirings provide, which makes it the kind of crisis Pakistan cricket is least equipped to handle: one for which there is no jugaar, no workaround, no silver bullet. Pakistan’s domestic structure may be creaking, but refusing to lubricate it has been a conscious choice no recent administrator can exculpate themselves from.

Pakistan’s performances in the Test series against Bangladesh have been difficult to justify, and their captain Shan Masood made little attempt to do so. Following the shock 2-0 defeat at home, he called for long-term solutions beyond superficial changes, emphasised the need for Pakistan to play more red-ball and Test cricket, and admitted his side tended to “keep making the same mistakes”.

“In the batting department, and not just in this series, we need to improve in the second innings,” Masood said. “We tend to collapse quite frequently. We did well in each first innings, losing both tosses when there was weather around. We scored 448 and declared, and then 274, and when we reduced them to 26 for 6, that was a reflection of the pitch. That was the pitch we batted on and scored 274. We started well with ball and bat, but over four or five days, you need to be mentally tough throughout to make it count.”

Pakistan’s tendency to fall apart as games go deep isn’t just a problem for Masood’s tenure, but it has been amplified over the last five Tests. In Melbourne and Sydney, Pakistan got themselves into promising positions before letting the game get out of hand, and let slip situations from where Bangladesh needed to break records to recover. Masood praised Bangladesh’s “discipline”, and said their Test experience demonstrated the value of regular red-ball cricket.

“We have to respect the opposition and Bangladesh’s discipline was superior to ours in both Tests. We have to look at ourselves and the kinds of mistakes we made this series, and we made plenty. Test cricket, in terms of fitness, whether mental or physical, lasts for four or five days. What we’ve shown this series is that’s something we need to work on.”

With more Test cricket coming up, Pakistan’s players have virtually no avenue to prepare by playing red-ball cricket. Most of this squad will play the 50-over version of the newly created Champions Cup from September 12 to 29, before launching almost immediately into a three-Test series at home against England. With the Quaid-e-Azam trophy, Pakistan’s premier first-class tournament, coinciding with that series, the problems of limited red-ball cricket are unlikely to be alleviated soon.

The Issue of player fitness has constantly weighed on Masood and the team management, with Pakistan attributing to it some of their more contentious selection decisions. Masood said last week that the extra seamer at the cost of a spinner for the first Test was to distribute the workload more lightly among four pace bowlers. For the second Test, both leading fast bowlers Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah were rested, and Pakistan’s three-pronged pace attack was notably bereft of pace in comparison to Bangladesh’s.

Masood admitted Pakistan might have been better served not resting the duo collectively. “We kept Naseem in the 12, because we might have had to play four fast bowlers, which we could have done considering the load this weather might put on the bowlers. But we chose to go with Mir Hamza for the left-arm angle we were missing with Shaheen so a lot of thought went into it. Never easy resting your two premier bowlers.

Masood has been in Pakistan cricket long enough to know its administrators and selectors aren’t known for patience; his staccato career – 35 Tests in 11 years – exemplifies this. Appointed just five Tests ago, he may still be a new captain, but he knows he wasn’t the obvious choice at the time, and is playing to prove his place in the side as much as his leadership credentials. Having become the first Pakistan captain to lose his first five Tests, and averaging 28.60 in ten innings, he understands how quickly the walls can close in.

At the moment, Pakistan have the worst of both worlds, with neither Masood nor his team able to find results that offer breathing space. After the next home series against England, Pakistan travel to South Africa, and they are currently eighth out of nine in the World Test Championship table.

Masood drew hope from the positions Pakistan got themselves into, pointing to four of the five Tests played under his captaincy. “If you do something good once, it’s an encouraging sign, and then you try and repeat it. We took time to adjust in Perth, but after that, in Melbourne, Sydney, both Pindi Tests, the game was in our hands and then we let go of it. This is something we have to work on.

“From encouraging signs, it’s turning into something we’re not good at and need to improve. When you back an opposition into a corner, you need to be clinical in putting that side away. Whether it’s Australia or Bangladesh, the answer as to what mistakes we’re making is the same.”

About the writer
Shahzeb Ali Rizvi is a sports aficionado with a keen eye for the intricacies of cricket and football. He can be reached at [email protected]