Pak vs Eng 2024 – England makes Pakistan’s mental and tactical weakness even more evident

Pope signaled them to come in and ten minutes later Abdullah Shafique came out to face the first ball. He had just completed a hundred innings and England had proven there was little to fear from the surface as the Test dragged on. In truth, at this stage of his career, there is little to worry about with Chris Woakes away from home, nor from the first delivery he dispatched. A polite question after a half-volley, simply asking the new ball if it needs an early swing. Going forward immediately after release, the answer was clear: that wouldn't be the case.

But no matter, Shafique would play the wrong line anyway. The ball rushed through the unlocked goal and uprooted the off-stump. After three and a half days of the surface looking as if it had nothing to offer, England collapsed again and again. It may seem like a magic trick, but even the most impenetrable safe can be broken into if the door is left open.

And Pakistan has left the door open quite a bit. Saim Ayub and Abdullah Shafique's opening scores read like a telephone number: 0, 0, 5, 3, 7, 0, 8 and 0, for a combined average of 2.87. No specialist batting pair has ever managed to go so many innings without reaching double figures, and if two innings on this surface don't break that streak, you wonder what will happen.

In that ignominious second half of the day, Pakistan's fragility, both mental and tactical, was as evident as the pitch prepared in Multan. Shan Masood lasted all 22 balls in a fierce innings and was lucky to survive that long, being spared twice as Woakes and Atkinson each brought him down. Babar Azam's attack on the goalkeeper was reminiscent of the way he was repeatedly sent off in Australia, except this was Multan, not Perth, and Atkinson, for all his promise, is not exactly Josh Hazlewood or Pat Cummins .

But with self-confidence approaching subterranean levels, there is no situation pressing enough to pull him out of the rut in which he seems irretrievably trapped, or a playing field flat enough to accommodate the now usual one To prevent Pakistan's collapse in the third innings. That's how they've lost every other Test match this year, a streak that will be extended when England complete the formalities on the final day of the match tomorrow.

But little of it is new and even less surprising. The only evidence we have of Masood and Abdullah's return to form is the first day when England had success on the surface The continues, while the jury is still out on the Saim Ayub experiment. Babar is now closing in on the longest run without a half-century by a Pakistan batsman in history. Pakistan's injury-hit game shows no signs of slowing down and the ailing Abrar Ahmed is the last doubt over his fitness.

Pakistan's options to replace him are disappointing, exacerbated by the fact that there is no obvious replacement in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy. Do you know why? With three Tests underway in the biggest red-ball summer in a generation, this year's edition is yet to begin. In September they played the Champions One-Day Cup instead, and although its merits remain controversial, white-ball spinners are of little use to Pakistan, with no evidence that their skills are transferable to this format against a batting line-up of England's class.

But while it's hard to blame individuals for a broken structure, the loss of six wickets in a session on this deck lies at the feet of the individuals on this side. Aamer Jamal and Salman Ali Agha – two of Pakistan's bright spots last year – proved just that in an unbeaten 70-run partnership that concluded the day. Pakistan may have delayed the inevitable in Multan overnight, but the torment is only prolonged. And for many on this particular testing site, it may be an apt metaphor.