Each of the areas in which they dominated England at Lord’s let Pakistan down at Old Trafford – and Alastair Cook and Joe Root made them pay
Jarrod Kimber at Old Trafford22-Jul-2016Plan A: Yasir takes ten wicketsMisbah-ul-Haq finds Yasir Shah, sets a fairly defensive field with a couple of catchers, some protection, and then winds him up and lets him go. That was supposed to be how it worked.But Yasir did not contain, there was no bamboozle, and he often did not land the ball where he wanted it.Often he dropped short. Not often for a normal legspinner in the park, or a standard legspinner in first-class cricket, or even Test-quality legspinner, but often for him. On eight occasions he bowled long hops, seemingly almost as many as he had bowled in his previous 13 Tests. That made Alastair Cook and Joe Root feel like they didn’t have to be as cautious off him. At one stage Root played a slog-sweep, the same shot that got him out at Lord’s, and this time, he smashed it with complete dominance and control. Whatever the hold Yasir had over England at Lord’s seemed to have been smacked off with this shot.Yasir bowled with new and old ball, over the wicket to regular fields, around the wicket to attacking fields, around the wicket to defensive fields, tried both ends a couple of times each, tried bowling with only three men on the off side, changed plans all day, and one stage he was trying so many things he metamorphosed into Azhar Ali.Yasir still tweaked his shirt shoulders, licked his fingers, stuttered over his first step, charged to the crease, had a high-arm action and bowled all day. It just didn’t work.Before the Test Misbah said, “If they play Yasir well we should have other plans.” They did play him well, and Pakistan didn’t have another plan.Plan B: Take new-ball wicketsMohammad Amir and Rahat Ali are new-ball bowlers. Their skills work best when the ball is fresh, they can both swing and seam it.Today the first new ball took one wicket. That it was a peach of an inswinger that made Alex Hales look like a confused bowler with a bat in hand was nice, but it wasn’t enough. Their job has to be to saw off the top of the batting order – Amir’s main job in this team should really be taking the wicket of Cook. While the entire world was looking at the other end at Lord’s, it was Rahat that took the three wickets at the start of the final innings. Here, his first new-ball wicket was when the score was over 300, from a bit of a dirty chop on.There will be days when this is Plan A, and the only plan they need. But here they were loose. Not terribly, but neither bowler, despite their wickets so far, has really controlled the ball well in the UK. They haven’t maintained pressure for long enough periods. Against struggling English batsmen that matters less. Against Root and Cook, it matters lots.Yasir Shah was left frustrated on the first day at Old Trafford•AFPPlan C: Reverse swingThere was a time at Lord’s when Wahab Riaz seemed to have a left arm made of doom. The ball wasn’t reverse swinging, it was reverse booming. At Old Trafford, Pakistan needed their middle-overs enforcer to take the pressure off Yasir, even if it was just for a few overs, and make up for the fact that the two new-ball bowlers couldn’t break through enough.Instead the ball didn’t reverse swing. Especially not for Wahab.It did, if you want to be entirely accurate, at times reverse fade. It wasn’t gun barrel straight, it had the slightest kink. But it wasn’t Wahab who used it, it was Amir, who took the edge of James Vince (before Younis Khan missed his third chance of the series) and Rahat who took the edge of Vince again.It wasn’t an explosion of Pakistan fast-bowling power, it was a couple of decent spells with the old ball that produced a wicket.Reverse swing is still more art than science. Some blamed recent concerts by Beyonce and Rihanna for a softer outfield, which is more speculation than evidence. Wahab was trying to scuff the ball up by bowling it into the wicket. He probably didn’t do much different to the last match when he turned the ball into a heat-seeking missile, it’s just that this time the ball didn’t swing. And it meant that instead of enforcing, or inspiring, he was largely a stock bowler with no wickets.Plan D: A mysteryAzhar and his four Test wickets is probably not a plan. Getting Mohammed Hafeez tested and hoping his action is legal again between Tests is more hope than plan. Bowling to ultra-defensive fields and boring England out is a plan, if Cook and Root aren’t already batting. Catching all their chances could be a plan. Drying up runs through continued pressure and no poor balls might be a plan.But really, if they are going to win, Amir and Rahat need to take more wickets with the new ball, Yasir needs to regain his control and Wahab needs to reverse the ball savagely. You can have plans D through to Z, but when you come up against Root and Cook on a decent batting pitch, you need your best to be at their best. This time they weren’t.
