Time for Saqlain to get broom treatment

13 April 2012

If England didn't know before the first Test, they can now be in no doubt whatsoever that Saqlain Mushtaq poses the biggest threat to them leaving their tour of Pakistan unbeaten.

Even though Saqlain took all eight wickets in England's first innings of 480, with sounder catching and a little more pace in the pitch he could have bowled us out for half the score and then it would have been a real struggle.

An off-spinner who bowls a 'leg-break' is unique in my experience - not that many even drift it from leg to off in the air.

It's hard to pick Saqlain's wrong un, possibly he gives it a bit more air but by bowling from wide of the crease and angling it in he makes it harder to leave anything that is pitching outside off stump.

And as Nasser Hussain discovered, if you give him the charge and don't get to the pitch of the ball you're in big trouble.

By and large, England coped well with Saqlain in Lahore, each with his own plan of attack. Graham Thorpe, after surviving an early chance to slip, was happy to push into the gaps for singles, while Craig White showed the advantage by opening his shoulders and looking for the open spaces.

But the pitch there was slower than myself going for a third run these days and on a faster surface in Faisalabad next week, England's best bet may be to get out the broom and disrupt Saqlain's length by utilising the sweep.

Slow bowlers don't like being swept - Shane Warne hates it. The horizontal stroke is relatively safe if the bounce is consistent, and by 'sweeping on length' the batsman doesn't really have to worry which way it will spin.

After a couple of overs of being swept or lapped, Saqlain will start to push his deliveries up an extra couple of feet allowing the batsmen to get to the pitch and smother the spin.

Graham Gooch used to be a master with the broom but the tactic can come unstuck against the wrong ball as we saw when Thorpe skied a return catch to Saqlain in the first Test attempting to sweep a ball that was too near him.

Whatever approach England take in Faisalabad they must remain positive and stick to their game plans without being gungho which, possibly, was the mistake Nasser made in Lahore.

It seems nothing is going right for the skipper at the moment and Pakistan, like the West Indies used to, are setting out to keep the opposition captain under-mined.

So even when the pressure was off on the final day of the first Test there were no easy runs for Nasser. Wasim Akram greeted him with a couple of short ones and instead of a morale-boosting 25 or 30 he gets a bruised wrist to add to all his other problems.

There is no simple way out of a poor run of form. Batsmen can go out with all guns blazing, as Nasser did in the first innings, and hope their luck holds until they get to a respectable total, or they can go the other way and be overly defensive.

The best advice is the most obvious: play your natural game. But that's not so easy when everyone is pointing out you havn't bettered 25 in a Test this year.

One thing Nasser can be sure of in Faisalabad is that the pitch will be faster, a little rougher and take spin. Any talk about Pakistan preparing a green track is nonsense because they won't risk taking on our seamers with theirs.

That means England must stick with two spinners. Ashley Giles was very tidy in Lahore, and won an important battle when he bowled Inzamamul-Haq, and while Ian Salisbury will be disappointed, at least he has something to build on this time.

Happily there was no Hansie Cronje- style assault on his leg-spin and after scoring a few runs and fielding well, the Surrey all-rounder will feel he has contributed to the cause. That should help his confidence.

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Time for Saqlain to get broom treatment

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