Pakistan's Cracks Widening with Struggling Performances

Pakistan in an ideal world should have found its way past Bangladesh in the first Test. Since 2021, though the cracks have been showing and widening further and further. While they were really good in the 2021 World Cup and 2022 T20 World Cup, the performances from 2022 have been a lot more to look into. In 2022 for instance, while Pakistan did make the next round, they lost to Zimbabwe and failed to defend a total against India after having them on the brink of defeat. While winning and losing for Pakistan is normally unpredictable, making them one of the more interesting sides to watch the last few months have been going one way.

They started the 2023 World Cup as contenders given the conditions but were far from competing with losses to Afghanistan and an out-of-form England early on. It got worse in 2024. The World Cup saw the USA get their first T20 World Cup win against a big cricketing nation and they were out in the first round of the tournament. While the Pakistan cricketing pendulum moves around a lot, the last few months were far from Pakistan's regular style of losing when expected to win. With Test Cricket, they have struggled to win a home Test, last winning in 2021. The pitches at home are far from helpful with Rawalpindi in particular looking flat. While Rawalpindi was flat, the strategy from Pakistan made it worse. Going with an all-pace attack turned out to be a bad decision with Bangladesh taking a good chunk of wickets through spin, showing that a spinner would have been very helpful in such conditions.

Does Pakistan have a solution for the fall though? They have done several overhauls with coaches and selectors shuffling around consistently since 2019. Their captians have moved around too and given recent performances the Test captaincy does not look cemented as well. For all the talent Pakistan seemingly brought in, options are drying up. With the bat, barring Abdullah Shafique there has not been too much from young batters with the older ones, who are well into their 30s, bringing in the numbers. The Domestic tournament in itself has been overhauled and tweaked a numerous number of times. 

The spinners are the next piece of the puzzle. While Pakistan did not go with a spinner in the previous Test, there is a deeper thought in the fact that spinners are not turning up as much in Pakistan. After Yasir Shah, very few have been capable of showing caliber at Test level according to numbers. The pitches make it far more difficult to support the growth of spinners as well with dead tracks giving nothing for them to show or do. When the going gets tough though, the light often falls on the Fast bowlers. Pakistan has a rich history of producing some incredible fast bowlers but that too has been fading.

Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah both have had their share of injuries and are now down on pace, while Haris Rauf too has not been at his best for a while in white-ball Cricket. Haris Rauf's reluctance to play Tests has depleted the cupboard further. The backup options too are not the most penetrating and it was evident as Pakistan struggled to make an impact in the first Test against Bangladesh. With another Test to go, Pakistan could be looking at some more changes after this series in what has been a really long and dark period for them.