Pakistan hope to get more life from the pitch when they take on England in the second Test in Multan starting Friday.
\nEngland took full advantage of winning the toss \u2014 and their batting depth \u2014 to win the first Test by 74 runs Monday on a dead Rawalpindi wicket that offered nothing to the bowlers.
\nMultan, however, despite not hosting a Test match for 16 years, could provide more spin if recent domestic matches are anything to go by.
\nPakistan skipper Babar Azam, who scored a century in Pakistan\u2019s first innings in Rawalpindi, said he wanted something more lively.
\n\u201cWe wanted a spin pitch (in Rawalpindi),\u201d he told reporters. \u201cI gave my input \u2026 but unfortunately it was not what we planned.\u201d
\nRawalpindi yielded 1,768 runs in four innings \u2014 the third most in Test history \u2014 with seven individual centuries and five 50s.
\nBut Multan helped spinners in the last first-class match played there, with former Test spinner Yasir Shah taking five wickets in each innings.
\nStill, leg-spinner Zahid Mahmood \u2014 who conceded a whopping 319 runs for his six wickets in the first test \u2014 may get the axe from the Pakistan selectors.
\nMohammad Nawaz and the uncapped Abrar Ahmed are vying for his spot.
\nFast bowler Hasan Ali will likely fill in for the injured Haris Rauf, himself a replacement for world-class pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi, who is out of the series.
\nEngland will also make an injury change, with wicketkeeper-batter Ben Foakes likely coming in for Liam Livingstone, who is heading home for treatment on his knee.
\nRegardless of the Multan surface, England skipper Ben Stokes has promised no end to \u201cBazball\u201d, the brand of aggressive cricket coined from the nickname of head coach Brendon McCullum.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re going to play to win every game,\u201d he said after Monday\u2019s win \u2014 the seventh in eight Tests since the McCullum-Stokes partnership took over in May.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not always going to work, but if you\u2019re brave enough and willing enough to go out and play in that way, if you lose a game, it\u2019s still going to be entertaining.\u201d The weather could also be a factor.
\nProvincial authorities have issued a fog alert for the next few days, which could eat into playing time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan hope to get more life from the pitch when they take on England in the second Test in Multan starting Friday. England took full…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3438,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}