Sarfaraz Ahmed took his place behind the stumps as Abrar Ahmed came around the wicket to Shakib Al Hasan, and watched as the left-hander slapped it over cover to hit the winning runs. Pakistan had plumbed new depths, losing 2-0 to a Bangladesh side who had just achieved their greatest series win. It was Pakistan's fifth Test defeat on the bounce, and they had extended their winless run at home to 10 Test matches.
Less than 24 hours later, Sarfaraz was in Lahore. He hadn't been called up for any kind of emergency meeting to discuss how to address that defeat. The PCB had, instead, sent for him because he was the only one of the five mentors - recently appointed at great expense - who hadn't yet talked up the current board's latest vanity project: the Champions Cup.
So in case you wondered how seriously the PCB are taking their worst home run in Test cricket, here was Pakistan's most experienced Test player being asked to perform pre-competition vapidities for a white-ball tournament sandwiched between Pakistan's two home Test series this year. There will be no extended training camp before England arrive because this one-day cup finishes on September 29, eight days before the first Test starts. It is the essence of what Test captain Shan Masood called "studying science in preparation for a maths exam".
It might have been useful for Pakistan's struggling batters - of whom there were plenty during the Bangladesh series - to drop down to domestic red-ball cricket ahead of England's visit, but they won't have that option. The Quaid-e-Azam Trophy is not scheduled to begin until the second week of October, coinciding directly with England's visit. While September isn't the ideal month for four-day cricket in most of Pakistan, the QeA did begin on September 10 in 2023, a timeline that, replicated this year, would have provided for the option of competitive red-ball cricket before England arrived.
But QeA seasons are like snowflakes; no two are the same. And even though the Champions Cup will perhaps be the highest quality domestic one-day competition in Pakistan, with resources being poured into and every fit Pakistan player available to play, it's still not red-ball cricket. No matter how meticulously you study science, there's only so much good it'll do you in a maths examination room.
Anyone who hasn't studied maths ahead of an exam will know that sinking feeling of the numbers not adding up. Many of Pakistan's batters were reacquainted with it over the past fortnight; five of the top seven are arguably short of form. Ahead of the biggest red-ball season for Pakistan this century, three did not play a single red-ball game. Saim Ayub managed just one, Salman Ali Agha two, Saud Shakeel three. Masood's County Championship contract meant he was the only player with red-ball experience before this season.
For all the concerns about the chasm between the calibre of Pakistani domestic and international cricket, it is notable that Pakistan's Test middle order has been a world-leading source for runs; numbers 5-7 average 43.68 in Tests in this WTC cycle , better than batters in those positions in any other side. Two of the men in these positions - Agha and Shakeel - have the closest proximity to first-class cricket in this Pakistan side. Pakistan batters since the start of 2021 have faced a collective 12,642 domestic red balls; Agha and Shakeel alone are responsible for over a third of them (4670). Red-ball cricket - any red-ball cricket, it would appear - matters.
It should hardly surprise, then, that Pakistan's approach of treating form like a carrier pigeon, whose return bearing good news can only be patiently awaited rather than manifested, was heavily punished by Bangladesh.
The visitors, too, played no first-class cricket in the build-up months, though they are a side at a different stage in their evolution, full of experience in the batting order. Mushfiqur Rahim and Shakib are the two longest-serving active Test cricketers in the world, Mominul Haque has played more Tests than any member of the Pakistan side, and only Babar Azam can beat Litton Das' and Mehidy Hasan Miraz's Test tallies. The repository of first-class cricket to fall back on simply isn't there for most of Pakistan's batters.
The PCB is famous for frenetic, slapdash changes to personnel, and there may yet be more before the first ball of that England series is bowled. What will not change, though, is the number of balls Pakistan's players face or bowl in red-ball cricket. This year's schedule has not provided for the first-class tournament to begin until the season's third Test is well underway, with the only cricket to tide them over a jazzed-up domestic one-day tournament.
Masood may lose his job before the England series begins, but that would make the incomer odds-on favourite to reprise Masood's 0-5 record, with series against England at home and away in South Africa next in the schedule. Masood may linger on and end up 0-10, or close to it, but without the support for players to work on their games away from the cauldron of Test-match cricket, there is no way to stem the onrushing tidal wave.
Pakistan cricket is now little more than a release valve for the dopamine hits sackings and hirings provide, which makes it the kind of crisis Pakistan cricket is least equipped to handle: one for which there is no jugaar , no workaround, no silver bullet. Pakistan's domestic structure may be creaking, but refusing to lubricate it has been a conscious choice no recent administrator can exculpate themselves from.
An official involved with the Pakistan team admitted red-ball cricket ahead of a Test series was preferable, but also that scheduling was hard work. Which it is. Not quite as hard, though, as consistently short-changing Test cricket and continuing to expect results.
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