A crumble with tea: Pakistan’s Test collapses are now a template

To say that Pakistan have one single problem in Test cricket would be fatally generous; there is little pace in the tank, the bowling has tended to be flat and frequently pedestrian, the fielding not particularly inspiring, and the on-field decision-making insipid and often too defensive.

Day 1 of the first Test match of the three scheduled between Pakistan and England validates almost all of these. The day’s play ended with England in a commanding position, trailing by just 59 runs with 8 wickets in hand.

Before proceedings even began, Pakistan lost recently re-appointed captain Babar Azam right when he had found his richest vein of form (in years) to a finger injury, putting the team on the back foot.

And after being put into bat, stand-in captain Salman Ali Agha said Pakistan would have batted first at either outcome of the toss, a statement that aged poorly very quickly as the team found itself at 6-2 within the first five overs.

Most of these issues, however, start to seem somewhat passable once you turn your head towards Pakistan’s recent outings with the bat. Again, using ‘recent’ as a qualifier here is also being fatally generous.

What is particularly puzzling is that these collapses also often follow promising, healthy partnerships — such as Imam and Abdullah’s 91-run stand in Leeds, or Babar and Abdullah’s 168-run effort against the West Indies in the match before.

This might indicate that, if extracted, Pakistan might have enough batting potential in the tank to at least make some progress towards the results the side desperately needs, but that has not been close to being met for an alarming chunk of the recent past.

However, it also reflects a deeper lack of planning and awareness, criticisms that have been cited and regurgitated towards the team at perhaps every incident and occasion of note in the last few years.

It indicates that the team folds in the face of panic easily, and that once a collapse of this kind is instigated, there is not much the bowling side has to do to conclude it with fruition.

It shows that there are no — or defective, if any — contingencies in place for the type of scenario that the batting line-up tends to find itself in more often than not.

It also indicates a lack of patience and sensibility in temperament, and that Pakistan has not yet been able to find the achievable medium of scoring good, quick runs that are also attritional and not ultimately self-destructive.

It does not help that Pakistan does not tend to start well — Pakistan’s average of just above 23 for opening partnerships is the worst for all Test-playing teams barring Ireland since the start of 2024.

These problems compound in spectacular fashion the later it is in the game, which does not bode well as we move further into this series, with the team having the lowest batting average (19.9) for the fourth-innings out of all teams in the current WTC cycle.

Combined with the tail often faltering completely — adding zero runs for the last 3 wickets in the second Test against the West Indies, for example, the overall picture of Pakistan’s batting does not make for aspirational or reassuring viewing.

Though it is still early days in this particular series, this is another WTC cycle that Pakistan has languished away, sitting only above the West Indies.

With other sides showing encouraging, progressive signs of improvement, such as Bangladesh, who scored a seminal away victory against Australia after their dismantling of Pakistan earlier this year, these consistent problems will have to be addressed quickly for Pakistan to retain any sort of competitiveness in Test cricket, both in this cycle and the next.

It remains to be seen whether this concerning trend is remedied any time soon, or if more teams should start investing in power tools to saw balls in half for keepsakes after taking frequent five-wicket chunks out of Pakistan, as Robinson and Tongue did yesterday.