The Pakistan team has been a revelation. Like the New Zealanders last year they have shown that the game can be played competitively but with the best of intentions. Unless those on the periphery have been missing something, there has been no obvious animosity between the teams which, it is fair to say, has not always been the case. In Misbah-ul-Haq they have one of the most significant figures in Pakistan’s cricket history and certainly one of the finest of modern captains if for nothing more than the manner in which he has brought unity to a fragmented side destined to sail the world like the Flying Dutchman of international cricket.
One may smile at the press-ups (well, yawn a bit now, to be honest) but even in that they have been true to a commitment they made when it would have been easy to flag it away. Here it was Misbah who led the way again: would, say, young Sami Aslam have had the confidence to face the pavilion at Lord’s and go through the promised drill had he made the first Pakistan hundred of the series?
The result has been a spirited series that after three matches remains very much alive. At Lord’s Pakistan recorded a historic win, led by Misbah, and hammered home with some compelling bowling by Yasir Shah, albeit against naive batting. At Old Trafford the situation was heavily reversed, the Pakistan bowling unhinged by the brilliance of Joe Root in particular. So thoroughly beaten were they that many, this correspondent among them, concluded that they would not be able to recover, that all the stuffing had been knocked out of them.
Instead, in a cracking match at Edgbaston, Pakistan were undone in a crucial couple of sessions after making the running for half of the match.
Thus the final Test of the summer starts enticingly on Thursday with England in the ascendant but with the knowledge now that the Pakistan team are not one that will roll over. The opportunity is there for them to draw a series in England, not to be sniffed at for a developing side, while England, should the result go their way, will be top of the pile as the No1-ranked Test team. If the stars then align in the right way in the Caribbean, where India are playing West Indies, they may even stay there for more than a few days.
While Edgbaston is one of those grounds where England have dominated Pakistan, The Oval is anything but. It was here, in front of the Victorian gasholder in 1954, that Fazal Mahmood and his fast-medium cutters took 12 wickets in a low-scoring match to bring about his country’s first win in England.
England then won the next two games here between the sides, in 1962 and 1967, but they have not managed to do so in six matches since, aside from that awarded by default in 2006. In 1987 England found themselves following on 476 runs behind Pakistan’s mammoth 708, a total founded on 260 from Javed Miandad and reinforced by hundreds from Saleem Malik and Imran Khan. Bowled out by Abdul Qadir’s leg-spin, they were saved second time round by Mike Gatting’s 150.
Five years later Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Aaqib Javed precipitated another defeat for England, by 10 wickets, and four years on from that Waz ’n’ Waqar, this time with Mushtaq Ahmed’s leg-spin, inflicted defeat by nine wickets with runs there for Saeed Anwar and, once again, Saleem.
It was another 10 years before Pakistan returned to The Oval, for a match that, despite an uncontroversial series to that point, plunged the sport into crisis. Accused of ball-tampering by the umpires, Darrell Hair principally and Billy Doctrove, the Pakistan captain, Inzamam-ul-Haq, and his team refused to take the field on the fourth afternoon, believing they had been victimised and unfairly pilloried by a vindictive official.
Despite considerable diplomatic negotiations overnight, and an agreement by both sides to resume, the umpires deemed that the game had already been forfeited by Pakistan and declared England the winners, the first time such a decision had been made in the 129-year history of Test cricket.
The last time England played Pakistan here, six years ago, they lost again, this time by four wickets, bowled out by the sensational teenager Mohammad Amir. For once, though, The Oval did not stage the final Test.
There was still Lord’s to come and everyone knows what happened there. Aside from Jimmy Anderson’s spat with the umpires at Edgbaston and some spurious claims of ball-tampering on England’s part by a section of the Pakistan media, this series has been devoid of controversy and there is no reason to suppose that will not continue to be the case. If Test cricket, and particularly five-day Test cricket, needs advertising, then these two sides are straight from Madison Avenue.
