So they didn’t do it. And in the end they weren’t even all that close. But for a moment, when England lost two wickets in the first over, and the first loud cries of ‘Pakistan, Zindabad’ were breaking out, it felt like they just might.
Honestly, just the faint possibility was all this match, even this series, needed. The prospect of a contest was enough to make it one of those happy match mornings when nobody at the ground could be exactly sure what was in store, or see which way the day’s play was headed.
And it was all because of Razaullah – a 21-year-old in his first year as a professional cricketer. He was supposed to be playing for Cleethorpes in the Yorkshire Southern Premier League this summer. He could have spent today taking on Whiston Parish at Chichester Road, £4 a pint and Grimsby v Bristol Rovers on the TV. But, more’s the pity for Cleethorpes fans, he had to pull out of that because he was called up to a Pakistan Cricket Board fast-bowling camp, where he caught the attention of Mike Hesson, who has just become Pakistan’s 12th Test coach in the past five years.
Whatever else this whitewash has cost Pakistan, and they have lost seven players, two coaches, and a selector in the past seven days, they have found another fast bowler, a real free-swinging, six-dinging, wicket-taking, heart-breaking hero of a cricketer.
Which makes him the latest in a long line. In 2010, Pakistan turned up with Mohammad Amir, only 18, all wicked left-arm-swing and a long, floppy fringe. He ripped through Australia in a neutral Test at Lord’s then did it again at Headingley, where he was man of the match in a three-wicket victory. Then he skittled England in a four-wicket win at the Oval. By the end of the summer he had been caught in a spot-fixing sting by the News of the World, dropped from the squad, arrested and sentenced to three months in prison.
Ten years later, Pakistan were back with a vicious attack led by Shaheen Shah Afridi, 20, and Naseem Shah, who was just 17. Both ought to be on this tour. They aren’t because they have been broken by the PCB during the years in between. Neither bowls anything like the speeds they used to when they came through. Naseem has spent the last few weeks playing in the Caribbean Premier League. Afridi has just announced his comeback in Pakistan’s domestic competition.
Afridi’s speed has never recovered from the bungled medical treatment he received for a knee injury in 2022, just like his spirit has never recovered from the way he was stripped of the T20 captaincy and repeatedly dropped from the Test squad. Shah last made the headlines in March when the PCB fined him for a social media post that criticised the chief minister of the Punjab for attending a cricket match during the country’s fuel crisis. “Why is she treated like the Queen at Lord’s?” he wrote, a post later blamed on his social media manager.
“She” is also the niece of the prime minister. A prime minister whose interior minister also happens to be the chair of the PCB. Officially, this sort of political interference in cricket is against ICC regulations but, oddly, no one seems to be minded to bring this up during the board meetings, a reluctance that may or may not be related to the fact that those same meetings are being chaired by the son of the interior minister of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
The last Pakistan fast bowler to play 50 Tests was Waqar Younis, who reached the mark in 1998. Even Razaullah’s new ball partner in this match, Mohammad Abbas, has managed only 32 and he has been the best bowler in the County Championship for a large part of the past decade. Abbas is 36, and was playing for Sialkot while Razaullah was still in his crib. He is coming up to his 20th year in the sport and is pretty well acquainted with the vicissitudes of being a Pakistan fast bowler. Last month, he took eight wickets in a Test against West Indies in Trinidad and was dropped for the next game.
Abbas steered Razaullah through this match. He talked to him between deliveries and tucked into his slipstream when they were batting together. They even turned up for their post-match press conference together so Abbas could translate the English questions for him. Razaullah was happy to have him there.
He will be fine on the field, but off it, you suspect he is going to need all the help he can get.
