{"id":108990,"date":"2026-08-22T23:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T23:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/108990\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T23:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T23:02:09","slug":"eng-vs-pak-2nd-test-lords-london-calling-as-pakistan-shuffle-limited-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/108990\/","title":{"rendered":"Eng vs Pak, 2nd Test, Lord’s – London calling as Pakistan shuffle limited hand"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Pakistan<\/a> packed up in Leeds to make the bus journey down south, they will have taken in the crisp air, the cool summer breeze and gentle afternoon sunshine. After a wet and overcast start at Headingley<\/a>, this was almost a tauntingly good day to be batting in a Test match. A couple of miles down the road, that’s what they should have been doing, by now approaching – maybe even, heaven forbid, surpassing – the deficit England<\/a> had inflicted upon them.Instead, they batted themselves out of the right to be playing Test cricket on Saturday, and as everyone assumed their positions on the team bus, they may have looked around, wondering what they might do to change their fortunes. There is, after all, still a series on the line<\/a> with up to ten days of Test cricket to play, even if it might not feel that way. Salman Agha had, rather unconvincingly, insisted in defeat that Pakistan could beat “any side”<\/a> if they executed their game plans, but as Pakistan ponder what those game plans should be, the faces on the bus along for the ride may not have struck them with inspiration.”There is no hint,” as Carl Sagan almost said about Pakistan’s Test side, “that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.” There was nothing in Pakistan’s selection they got especially wrong at Headingley. Pakistan expected the ball to wobble around and went with the three seamers most likely to do that wobbling. Against an England side that were fairly open about not playing a specialist spinner, they picked Ali Usman, the call vindicated when he claimed the first visiting five-wicket haul on the ground in 54 years. In Babar Azam<\/a>‘s absence, they picked their best batters, and a captain who has experience of leading an international side. There were no especially egregious mistakes on that front, and though Salman went against Joe Root’s opinion that it was a bowl-first pitch, there is little evidence it would have made a difference.<\/p>\n

That is precisely what should terrify Pakistan so much; there were few overarching mistakes they can look to rectify when they have to line up at Lord’s in a few days. There’s no saviour to turn to, bar perhaps Babar, who hasn’t scored a Test hundred in four years. “We have no bowlers”, as Agha said, “who can consistently bowl 140-plus.” Every tactical discussion must take place amidst a suspension of disbelief, trying to convince yourself that Pakistan are not currently so poor at Test cricket that a fairly ordinary England side operating in third gear can comfortably overwhelm them.<\/p>\n

For anything else to be relevant, they really must first play better cricket. Even within their many limitations, this should not be hard. Headingley was a particular nadir even by their recent modest standards, a snapshot of the worst side in the World Test Championship having one of their worst games in recent memory. It took less than a full 90 overs to bowl them out twice, the fifth-fewest number of deliveries an opposition side has needed to wrap up two Pakistan innings in a Test. The fast bowling in helpful conditions did not find probing channels consistently enough, and the fielding was treated like an inconvenient irrelevance<\/a> rather than a fundamental part of the game. These cricketers are not good enough to have earned the luxury of such insouciance.If there is a place in this country they may find some comfort, though, it is London. Ten of Pakistan’s 13 Test wins have come at either The Oval or Lord’s, where they play the second Test, and their last three Test matches in London<\/a> produced wins. But the last of those came eight years ago, and there is only so much inspiration to can be drawn from a history that resembles the present so little.If Headingley picked up a reputation as one of the better pitches in England, Lord’s has trended in the opposite direction. Recent surfaces have not been conducive to run-scoring, while the one for New Zealand earlier this summer was rated “unsatisfactory”<\/a>. That, in any case was before a searing hot and dry summer took hold of the south of England, potentially favouring a pitch that Pakistan hope will take more turn earlier in Tests than has been typical. They have, in Sajid Khan, the option of a second spinner, though without finding a way to slot Aamer Jamal in as a third seamer, that would likely be a step too far.If the response to being given a demerit point is for Lord’s to roll out a flatter surface, though, Pakistan’s battery of trundlers will look even more benign. Shaheen Afridi led Pakistan Gold to victory in a domestic one-day competition in Multan last week, finishing as leading wicket-taker<\/a> after taking 7 for 36 in the final. Despite some calls for more variety and stardust in this bowling line-up, Afridi’s interest and effectiveness in Test cricket has waned; short of Pakistan pressing the fire alarm button, they must find a combination from within. Ubaid Shah, with his quicker – if not rapid – pace, will likely get a game, with Pakistan willing to bite the bullet on his lack of experience for the potential to cut through on a docile surface.Babar will come in, if fit, with Salman all but desperate to palm off the captaincy. It is a significant boost to Pakistan; Babar averages nearly 54 against this opposition and 65.75 in England<\/a>. But it is by no means the panacea many of his supporters might have you believe. He is still working his way back into Tests after cautious encouragement in West Indies, though on current form, Pakistan require contributions from more than one resurgent star. His return will likely reshuffle the top order with Abdullah Shafique, Pakistan’s best batter at Headingley, moving up to open, with one of Imam-ul-Haq and Azan Awais dropping out.<\/p>\n

That, though is just about all the juggling they can do. Without a significant rise in the level of performance, it will be like shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic; there’s little point to anything else they do if they continue heading into the iceberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Pakistan packed up in Leeds to make the bus journey down south, they will have taken in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[13136,10231,13134,348,27,18,13135],"class_list":["post-108990","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-bulletin","tag-cricket","tag-daily","tag-headlines","tag-london","tag-news","tag-package"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117141657756747676","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}