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Pace remains Pakistan's ace

Pakistani cricket may have taken a beating over the last few years but their ability to put out a genuinely world-class pace attack in any circumstance remains unaffected

Osman Samiuddin
Osman Samiuddin
20-Jul-2010
Mohammad Aamer and Umar Gul have combined well with Mohammad Asif to form a potent pace attack for Pakistan  •  Associated Press

Mohammad Aamer and Umar Gul have combined well with Mohammad Asif to form a potent pace attack for Pakistan  •  Associated Press

Pakistani cricket may have taken a beating over the last few years but their ability to put out a genuinely world-class pace attack in any circumstance remains unaffected. They've lost their last four Tests and have won only one of their last 18; their last series win came back in November 2006 but much of the blame can be put on a fragile batting line-up and poor catching.
But since last year, with the emergence of Mohammad Aamer and the return of Mohammad Asif combined with Umar Gul at first change, they have regularly been able to create openings in most Tests they have played. Though they've played only five Tests together so far, the trio has picked up 59 of the 83 wickets to have fallen in those games; at Lord's last week they took 15 of the 20 wickets.
Now they head to Headingley to try and prevent a 14th successive Test loss to Australia, a bilateral dominance unmatched in modern Test cricket. Though the ground is no longer the swing haven it was in the 80s, it still offers help to pace bowlers and much of Pakistan's hopes of avoiding a whitewash lie with the three.
Michael Holding, the former fast bowling great, was commentating during the first Test and was impressed by what he saw, in particular of the youngest of the three, Aamer. "The impressive thing about Aamer is the fact that at 18, he has the ability to move the ball in both directions without any noticeable change in action or delivery, yet has the control to adjust so easily to left- and right-handed batsmen," Holding told Cricinfo.
Aamer picked up four wickets in the first innings, but was more erratic in the second, when he went wicketless. "The pace that he generates is good and consistent," said Holding. "He is still a bit inexperienced as evidenced by his performance in the second innings when he started to experiment too much when he didn't pick up early wickets but time will cure that." Time is something Asif has served. Since his comeback to international cricket, following a virtual two-year absence on disciplinary grounds, Asif has picked up from almost precisely where he left off: he had 51 wickets in 11 Test at 23.13 until October 2007 and since then he has picked up 38 in 7 at 23.31. The strike-rates are marginally higher now, but the form has seen him shoot up to second place in the ICC rankings.
Holding is impressed though he says the regular comparisons between Asif's style and Glenn McGrath are misplaced. "Asif has done well and in this Test [Lord's] and has been more consistent over both innings because he has been around a bit longer and has more experience," Holding said. "He has enough pace when he puts it in to be disconcerting and has very good control.
"I wouldn't compare him with McGrath as I think there have been too many comparisons being made just because a bowler bowls medium pace and has good control. McGrath was taller and so able to get more bounce than most from closer to the batsman which makes a huge difference."
Gul's second-innings performance of 4-61 was arguably the most significant of the three for he has struggled to realign his strategy to Tests since becoming the game's leading Twenty20 fast bowler. Coach Waqar Younis highlighted a chink in the run-up during the Tests in Australia and Gul struggled at times with it during Lord's, bowling 12 no-balls in all. But he periodically relocated the lengths that made him such a Test prospect in his early years and the bounce and seam movement he generated from that troubled Australia, never more than in a fine second evening spell.
Holding warned, however, of the continuing impact the shortest form of the game will have on fast bowlers, a warning seconded by Imran Khan at the MCC's Cowdrey lecture. "I've always thought Gul was a good prospect. I don't watch that [Twenty20] format but it is obvious these days that fast bowlers will not last very long because of the amount of cricket they're being asked to play.
"They become medium-pacers at an early age, long before fast bowlers of the past because they just can't physically manage the workload. There is no way of managing the fast bowlers these days. It's just a fact that the amount of cricket they are being asked to play, they cannot last. Very soon, no one will bowl fast, they will all bowl at 80 odd miles an hour and try and last for a decade if possible."

Osman Samiuddin is Pakistan editor of Cricinfo