Perhaps Pakistan cricket only has the emotional capacity to work on one kind of mental scarring, and it had spent most of the last generation therapising to work on that. For Pakistan, it is Australia, the country they cannot seem to buy a win in; they have lost every one of their last 17 Tests there over the best part of the last three decades, and peppered in some truly heartbreaking ICC defeats along the way for good measure.
And while every defeat in Australia has produced its own epic, in South Africa the losses morph into one. The bowlers have been ground into the dirt, the batters shot out in a trice. There’s the odd good session, quickly followed by two of self-destruction, a wistful what-if, and everyone moves on. The masochistic tendency to relive and agonise over every defeat – like Pakistan do against Australia – isn’t quite there. About two times a decade the same performances are rinsed and repeated, and the same losses meted out almost perfunctorily.
“I think South Africa is one of the hardest places to bat in in the world,” he tells ESPNcricinfo. “[When I was] with South Africa, we knew that with Pakistan, if we could build pressure for long periods of time, we would ultimately get good results. We always felt Pakistan’s breaking point was quite low as a team. We could get in amongst them, and I wouldn’t say bully them, but we could come hard and be aggressive with the ball because ultimately they would succumb.”
“When I went there with Pakistan,” Arthur says, “I knew exactly what the template was. We tried to make sure our batters were in the best possible way in terms of belief, confidence and skillset in order to make that happen. And apart from one real shocking session in Centurion, it kind of worked for a period of time. The other thing with your bowlers is you’ve got to be patient. If you get gung-ho there as a bowling unit, and try to use pace and bounce too much, then you can get caught out.”
Akram averaged nearly 40 there in two Tests, Aaqib just under 37. Mohammad Abbas, Umar Gul and Azhar Mahmood have each conceded between 46.20 and 47.00 runs for their wickets, while Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar, two of Pakistan’s more successful seamers, managed solid but unspectacular averages of 28.30 and 29.30 respectively. Only Mohammad Asif (18.47) and Mohammad Amir (23.58) have truly excelled. Shaheen Shah Afridi, who averages a very respectable 26.66, is not part of the current Test side.
“They [Pakistan’s fast bowlers] bowl the wrong lengths,” Arthur says bluntly. “In South Africa, you get a little bit too excited when you see the ball flying through to the keeper. If you get too short, the South African batters are going to put you away. You have got to be disciplined and get enough balls in the right area. And if you do that, you can break them as a team.”
“I see so many teams being beaten by South Africa in the last session of the day. You lose a session badly, and there’s no coming back from that”
Mickey Arthur
Arthur makes no effort to conceal his feelings about Afridi not being part of the Test squad. When the squads for this series were announced, he was not named for the red-ball side; he will instead be playing in the Bangladesh Premier League, suggesting this format, in which he was among the world’s best up until two years ago, may not quite take pride of place among his priorities anymore.
“I can’t believe it,” Arthur says. “If he’s not bowling in South Africa, then where the hell are they bowling him? It’s the best place to bowl in the world, almost. Plus, he gives you a left-arm option. I know they have got Mir Hamza, but Shaheen is a game-breaker and match-winner. I’m not in the inner echelon in terms of knowing the ins and outs of why they haven’t selected him, but on pure skill, I would have him in South Africa in any team I pick.”
In the 1998 Durban Test, Mushtaq found a way for the surface to assist him. Late on the fourth day, he began to work through the South African top order as they set up in pursuit of 255. In an attack that included Waqar and Akhtar, it was Mushtaq who took on the leadership role, bowling 37 of 88.2 overs, taking six wickets as Pakistan squeezed home by 29 runs.
“The most important thing I told myself was, on the fourth and fifth days, spinners get help, regardless of where in the world you are,” Mushtaq tells ESPNcricinfo. “In fact, you get more help in South Africa and Australia than other places because on dry pitches like those, you get pace along with turn. So if a batter plays a poor shot or misreads line and length, they won’t have time to adjust. On Asian pitches, even if you deceive a batter off the pitch or in the air, the lack of pace allows them to adjust.
For Mushtaq, however, the key is patience. “South Africa demands good overs, not good balls,” he says. “I took wickets there because I knew how to use the bounce. Shane Warne enjoyed himself in South Africa, too. Overspinners, especially legspinners who have variations, will always be successful there because the pitches help you out. You get bounce, and bounce is very useful, whether it is Tests or ODIs. Because some go straight on and others turn, and that natural variation only comes to overspinners.”
It is why, he says, Yasir Shah never quite managed to crack South Africa, Australia, or New Zealand. “In the UAE, where he got so many of his wickets, on those dry pitches you had to bowl over 90kph, because it gave you grip,” he says. “That brought lbw and bat-pads into the game. Yasir was too quick, and South African pitches demand you bowl slower, sometimes as slow as less than 80kph. For overspin, you have to reduce the speed and let it spin in the air. When it picks up those revolutions in the air, it gives you pace off the pitch naturally. When you bowl fast there, they don’t spin, you might as well be giving the batters throwdowns. And batters will never get out to that.”
“South Africa demands good overs, not good balls. I took wickets there because I knew how to use the bounce”
Mushtaq Ahmed on key to success in South Africa
“That was one of the reasons we [Pakistan] worked so hard on our fitness, and on getting our bowlers mentally tough,” Arthur says. “You’re getting conditions you can work with. But the minute you fall away and your first spell is excellent, your second spell is okay, your third spell falls away, you’re going to get punished in the last session of the day. And I see so many teams being beaten by South Africa in the last session of the day. You lose a session badly, and there’s no coming back from that.”
There is the bigger picture of silverware down the line for South Africa. One win across these two games will guarantee a spot at the World Test Championship final, and though Pakistan no longer have any realistic aspirations for that crown, they can still play spoiler as India, Australia and Sri Lanka all wrestle for a berth.
For the visitors, though, victory in South Africa does not need to be transacted by context of any kind. Aside from the two Tests they have won, they have never realistically run South Africa close. It has, perversely, meant there’s less scrutiny of those heavier defeats, usually put down to a superior opposition and unfriendly conditions rather than a rethink of how to reverse that slide.
Mushtaq summed it up pithily. “When we go there 1735060384, it takes the Pakistani team time to adjust. It can take a couple of weeks, and by that time the Tests are pretty much over.”
Danyal Rasool is ESPNcricinfo’s Pakistan correspondent. @Danny61000