Seventh heaven: Yasir provides Pakistan’s moment of joy

There is normally nothing to write home about when Pakistan are playing in Australia. The visitors came into the series on the back of 12 consecutive losses in Tests in Down Under and are staring at another defeat in Brisbane.

Pakistan’s recent tours to Australia have been confined to small moments of happiness or individual brilliance. On their last tour, there was a double-century by Azhar Ali and centuries by Younis Khan and Asad Shafiq. On the tour before, in 2009-10, Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif took five-wicket hauls. In 2004-05, Mohammad Yousuf scored an elegant century in Melbourne and Shoaib Akhtar took a couple of five wicket-hauls.

But none of these performances earned Pakistan a victory and this will likely be their story in Brisbane this week as well.

Pakistan's rare moment of happiness in this match came on Saturday in the form of Yasir Shah dismissing Steve Smith, the world’s most prized wicket in Tests, cheaply. Smith was only on four when he was undone by Yasir’s drift while looking to whip him over the leg side, where he had earlier hit him for a boundary.

Yasir is more aware than most players of his own statistics. He knows every record, how many five-fors he has and how many wickets he takes in every series.

And he knows how many times he’s dismissed Steve Smith.

So, when he bowled him with a yorker-length delivery, he celebrated the wicket by raising seven fingers to the crowd, indicating it was the seventh time in Tests he has got the better of Smith.

Since making his comeback in 2013, Smith has scored 6718 runs at an average of 67.18 in Tests. But against Yasir, his average is only 27.28.

Yasir never missed a Test when Misbah-ul-Haq - the current coach - was captain of Pakistan and was his go-to man no matter what the conditions were.

Misbah’s bowling strategies are dependent on a spinner so Yasir kept his place in the team, despite his poor record in Australia. And it worked to an extent, dismissing Smith cheaply, but only after David Warner, Joe Burns and Marnus Labuschagne had done the damage.

Pakistan were considering playing four seamers in Brisbane but because Smith is Australia’s mainstay and Yasir has a good record against him, they opted to pick him and leave out Mohammad Abbas, even though Abbas had taken 17 wickets against Australia in the two-Test series in the UAE last year.

Although bowling coach Waqar Younis indicated Abbas is a chance to return in Adelaide next week.

"Abbas has been a match winner for us for nearly 18 months, but unfortunately he is not in his best rhythm,” Waqar said on Saturday.

"He had an injury during the New Zealand series. He hasn’t been bowling as well as he was bowling in the past, like against Australia and of course in England. But we are not losing hope in him. He is our main man. We will have a close look and once we get to Adelaide, we will think about it."

Pakistan also have a new captain on this tour in Azhar Ali, but it seems that the team is still following Misbah’s style of captaincy. Misbah belongs to a school of thought that in order to get wickets, first you have to contain runs. 

When Misbah was captain, he would regularly have a fielder at backward point to save boundaries, even in the initial overs of the innings. That fielder rarely appeared when Sarfaraz Ahmed was leading the team but now with Azhar at the helm, it seems Pakistan are back in the Misbah era.

There was a fielder at point when Naseem Shah bowled the 11th over of the innings here and Tim Paine was batting just on 12 on Saturday when Pakistan had four fielders on the boundary.

This is not to say that Misbah’s strategy is wrong. It worked for him and statistically he is Pakistan’s most successful Test captain. But whether a new captain can successfully implement the strategy of a former skipper is up for debate.

There was also an interesting moment ahead of Pakistan’s second innings when Azhar, the captain and opening batsman, didn’t ask for the roller straight away. He consulted the dressing room first about whether he should go with the heavy one or light one.

Ramiz Raja, commentator and former Pakistan captain, believes Azhar needs to show more assertiveness out in the middle.

"When he was announced as Pakistan’s captain, the only problem I had with Azhar Ali was exactly this because he’s too nice a guy," he told the Seven Network.

"Which is fine in a way, but you’ve got to be just a little bit more aggressive in your approach, your body language has got to show that you mean business."

Image Id: BFFC56ED9F9E4E47B927DE340585BE37 Image Caption: Azhar Ali's first series against Australia has got off to a rocky start // Getty

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting added that Azhar has to take responsiblity for what is a very young team.

"The captain has to stand up as well," he said.

"He can’t just expect that the young guys that he’s got in this team are just going to stand up and do it. A lot of them haven’t been in a situation like this before.

"He’s got to be vocal as well. You can see him at mid-off, he’s got his arms folded behind him, his body language is down."

Domain Test Series v Pakistan

Australia squad: Tim Paine (c), Cameron Bancroft, Joe Burns, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, James Pattinson, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Matthew Wade, David Warner

Pakistan squad: Azhar Ali (c), Abid Ali, Asad Shafiq, Babar Azam, Haris Sohail, Imam-ul-Haq, Imran Khan Snr, Iftikhar Ahmed, Kashif Bhatti, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Musa Khan, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shan Masood, Yasir Shah.

First Test: November 21-25, Gabba (Seven, Fox & Kayo)

Second Test: November 29 – December 3, Adelaide (d/n) (Seven, Fox & Kayo)