Where Wahab Riaz mustered the strength from is anyone’s guess. For five fiery overs, and with 28 already on the clock, the Pakistan bowler got the raggedy old ball to snake through the air at 90mph in a spell that would, briefly, breathe life into a Test match long since written off.
Taking the moribund pitch at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium out of the equation, this muscular left-armer from Punjab produced one of those quintessentially Pakistani bursts of reverse swing that sets pulses racing and ensures the eyes remain fixed to the action.
That was not always easy on the fourth day, with matches being played on the concrete pitches of the desert outgrounds to the east seemingly throwing up more incident than the endeavours of the two national sides competing in front of a vocal, if slightly disappointing, Friday crowd.
Wahab’s was the standout performance witnessed after Alastair Cook’s gimlet-eyed feat of endurance that saw him produce the longest innings by an English batsman in Test history; a record that would have been cut off at the knees had the wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed held his inside edge in the fourth over of the day.
Getting the ball to jag back into the England captain on 173, Wahab could only howl as the ball hit the grass. He would be called on to bowl a further two times by his captain after his opening salvo, the second of which saw Joe Root once bring out the uppercut and Cook nudge his way to a third double-century.
But it was his final effort, one which nearly broke the 30-year-old, that proved most thrilling as Pakistan delayed taking the second new ball, preferring to harness the old one’s suitability for reverse – the art their country gave to the cricket world – and turn a pedestrian afternoon into a brief fight for survival.
With Root nicking Imran Khan behind on 85 an end was opened up and, 157 overs into England’s innings, Misbah-ul-Haq called on his spearhead. The left-armer then set about exploiting the Kookaburra’s decrepit state with Jonny Bairstow the man in the crosshairs after Cook negotiated his first over.
It took eight balls to the Yorkshireman before the pad was struck in front by a full delivery on leg stump and Wahab fell to the ground and slapped it in exultation as the umpire Bruce Oxenford raised the finger. The review that followed was in vain.
Like his titanic, hand-clapping duel with Shane Watson in the World Cup quarter-final with Australia, the exchange with Ben Stokes that followed would see Wahab’s gut-busting best go unrewarded as he got the all-rounder hopping around at the crease with toe-seeking yorkers that prompted howls from their originator.
Two further shouts for lbw – the first an inswinger that stuck the knee roll, the second a toe-crusher that just did too much – failed to convince Oxenford before Wahab, utterly spent after keeping the heat up until the end, eventually stood down from his role and trudged straight off the field into the pavilion.
“It was a good spell,” he said afterwards, understating his efforts that produced shades of Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram in their pomp. “The ball was reversing both ways and I was in rhythm. [Stokes] was struggling with it coming into him, he didn’t know what was coming next. We tried our level best but he was quite lucky.”
While this series is yet to catch fire and the first Test looks destined for a draw, there is keen anticipation already for the next time Wahab is thrown a 77-over old ball.
