Pakistan’s new captain is a Bazball disciple, but does he have the players to play it?

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Perth: On a sunny day two at Old Trafford during this year’s unforgettable Ashes series, Australia’s globally feared pace attack was hammered by Bazball.

Led by Zak Crawley, England sprinted to a first innings of 592 while scoring at 5.5 runs an over, making Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and captain Pat Cummins look, on a very rare occasion, something like ordinary.

Pakistan’s captain Shan Masood.Credit: Getty Images

It was a scorecard that went around the world, including to a Pakistan side that had already begun to reshape into a far more proactive mould.

“If there was any time I saw Bazball, it was that day,” Usman Khawaja told this masthead. “They put the bowlers under so much pressure, our bowlers missed the spot a lot, they really weren’t sure what to do, and that was Bazball at its best. They dominated that game, and potentially would’ve won if not for the rain.”

In Perth this week, Khawaja and his teammates will learn whether Pakistan, now led by Shan Masood, have the ability and the mental fortitude to try out a similar brand of cricket in Australia.
They have been working towards it for most of the year, trialling the new “Pakistan way” of cricket in a thumping 2-0 series victory in Sri Lanka.

After a sequence of home series defeats, the previously passive Pakistan batting line-up surged to life, scoring at close to five runs an over in difficult, spin-friendly conditions and leaving the Sri Lankans – far from easybeats at home – with no answer.

It was, in a way, a mirror of how Crawley and company had monstered Australia’s vaunted pace attack in Manchester, the one moment in an otherwise tightly fought series where one side was “completely and utterly dominant”, to quote Ben Stokes, over the other.

Masood was Pakistan’s most articulate spokesperson during the series in Sri Lanka. After Pakistan were eliminated from the World Cup, Masood replaced Babar Azam as captain, and there is little doubt he will carry on in the same aggressive vein.

“The last Test cycle gave us a big reflection, and this management was very firm that one of the things that was lacking with us not winning Test matches, or not finishing them off, was that we weren’t scoring at such a high rate as our opposition,” Masood said. “That has been a concentrated effort.

“There were guys who were given a grant to go and play cricket in England, but the rest of the guys put in a lot of hard work during two skill camps that were based in Lahore and Karachi before we flew out to Sri Lanka. The emphasis was on scoring runs, just to put the opposition under pressure.

“In the camps, everything was left to individual preferences, but they were provided platforms to experiment – to play all kinds of shots, see what suited them, what kinds of oppositions they were coming up against. If you look at the players in our set-up, you can see subtle changes that have allowed them to score quickly.”

In addition to his Pakistan appointment, Masood has seen Bazball’s effects on English cricket up close as captain of Yorkshire. The demand for fast-scoring batters has been made loud and clear across the county system. And on an awfully sluggish Manuka Oval surface, Masood’s double-century against the Prime Minister’s XI was scored at a decisive tempo.

Zak Crawley and England put Australia’s paceman to the sword in Manchester.Credit: Getty Images

Australia’s planners, undoubtedly, are expecting a more aggressive opposition than they faced in early 2022 across an attritional series that Pat Cummins’ men ultimately won 1-0 on their first visit to Pakistan since 1998. But as was the case before the England series, the Australians want to see the rhetoric followed up with action.

“I think in the last series they played it was a more up-tempo brand and they’ll try to put more pressure on the bowling unit, so I think we’ll see a little bit of that,” head coach Andrew McDonald said.

“But, like anything, if we execute with the ball it’s going to be difficult to be able to maintain that over long periods. We’re not totally sure of the way they’ll play – they’ll signal their intent from the first ball out there.”

“We’re living in a day and age when there’s thrill-seeking batsmen going after bowlers, scoring runs and showing off their skills. We’d like to play a brand of cricket that’s attractive, but we’d like to play a brand of cricket that helps us win games.”

The three biggest hurdles to Pakistan’s chances of imposing themselves come in the form of the high-quality Australian team and how their players match-up with Pakistan’s, conditions affording plenty of bounce to make some attacking shots risky, and the recent overturning of Pakistan’s backroom after the World Cup.

Masood is leading a team that is now being guided by a cadre of former players, from team director Mohammad Hafeez to selection chief Wahab Riaz. The PCB briefly hired disgraced spotfixer Salman Butt as a selection consultant, before the move was kiboshed by public outcry both within and outside Pakistan.

One of the keys to Bazball is the calm and supportive environment fostered by Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum for England’s Test team. It remains to be seen whether Masood and company can do the same with the famously combustible Pakistani setup.

“We’re living in a day and age when there’s thrill-seeking batsmen going after bowlers, scoring runs and showing off their skills,” Masood said. “We’d like to play a brand of cricket that’s attractive, but we’d like to play a brand of cricket that helps us win games.”

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