One of the great fallacies propagated by tourists in cricket is about the homogeneity of conditions they face wherever they go. For Asian batsmen, and their fans, a match in Australia or South Africa is one where every ball is a snorter that tickles their chins. Even if an Asian team wins in Adelaide or Cape Town, it is presented as a victory in ‘fast and bouncy’ conditions. Equally popular is the idea that all Asian pitches are dry turners designed to overwhelmingly favour the home side – as if that’s necessarily a bad thing. In the eyes of many, there is little difference between National Stadium Karachi, SSC, the Gaddafi, the Wankhede or Eden Gardens. Yet Gaddafi is as different from the Wankhede as The Oval is from Headingley. And few places better showcase this contrast than Pakistan’s ‘home’ grounds right now. While Sharjah has three decades of batting brilliance and reverse swing as its trademarks, Abu Dhabi and Dubai are still under discussion as far as the visitors are concerned.
Dubai International Stadium is where Pakistan have made strangulation by spin their forte. Only one of the seven Tests in Dubai has elicited draws (4 wins and 2 losses for Pakistan). By comparison, three of the five Tests in Abu Dhabi have been draws (the other two ending in Pakistan wins).
Pakistan’s two losses in Dubai, to South Africa and Sri Lanka, show that teams that possess good players of spin can overturn Pakistan’s advantage there. Pakistan, after all, aren’t as great a team against spin as the opinion makers would argue. Thus, Pakistan often require a team that doesn’t play spin well (like England in 2012 or Australia last week) to make their advantage count.
Abu Dhabi, though, is a completely different beast. Often, the pitches in Abu Dhabi are the sorts frequently produced in Pakistan, where empty stands were a common sight: Generally hard but flat pitches that don’t tend to deteriorate as the Test goes on ensuring the match lasts till the fifth day – the very embodiment of pitches built for television networks and not for fans or the cricket.
In Dubai, Pakistan average 34.6 with the bat, compared to the opposition’s 30.9. In Abu Dhabi, the visitors have averaged three runs higher at a better strike rate, but Pakistan themselves average 40.3 per wicket. In fact, their first innings in the previous Test in Dubai was only the second instance of a team scoring more than 430 in a Test match there; Abu Dhabi has had six such scores in five Tests.
Thus, Michael Clarke’s team faces an uphill battle.
They have two possible straws to clutch on to, though. The Test in Abu Dhabi against England, the classic in 2012, might be the most famous match played there but it is also a great anomaly. That pitch was far more like the ones seen in Dubai than in Abu Dhabi. A repeat of that may be something Australia would fear, especially as they don’t really have the spinners of the class of Graeme Swann, or the skills of Monty Panesar.
But, as the trend shows, it was an anomaly, and that’s something Misbah-ul-Haq understands. “(Abu Dhabi) is different from Dubai because it is harder and has little bit more pace and bounce,” he said on Wednesday (October 29), the day before the start of the second and final Test.
The other straw for the Australians is what the pitch might do for the Australian bowlers. With Mitchell Johnson hitting several Pakistani batsmen in the first Test match, a pitch that offers more bounce might just be the thing Johnson and the Australian batsmen would require to turn the series around.
Just the record of Pakistan’s best bowlers shows up the differences in these two grounds. Saeed Ajmal, for one, averages just 21 in Dubai compared to 35 in Abu Dhabi. In contrast, Junaid Khan – a bowler similar to Peter Siddle in both approach and style – is the only bowler to take multiple five-fors in Abu Dhabi. His record of 18 wickets in four matches at just 23 is in stark contrast to seven wickets in three Tests at 48 in Dubai. Dubai is where Imran Tahir ran through Pakistan on the first day. Abu Dhabi is where Dale Steyn, Umar Gul, Stuart Broad and Mohammad Irfan have all taken four-wicket hauls to go with Junaid’s successes.
And yet, when this match is reported beyond these shores, the two Emirati grounds might well be spoken about as interchangeable.
Teams (from):
Pakistan: Misbah-ul Haq (capt), Ahmed Shehzad, Mohammad Hafeez, Taufeeq Umar, Shan Masood, Younis Khan, Asad Shafiq, Azhar Ali, Haris Sohail, Mohammad Talha, Rahat Ali, Imran Khan, Ehsan Adil, Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), Zulfiqar Babar, Yasir Shah.
Australia: Michael Clarke (capt), David Warner, Chris Rogers, Alex Doolan, Steven Smith, Ben Hilfenhaus, Phillip Hughes, Brad Haddin (wk), Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Marsh, Mitchell Johnson, Steve O’Keefe, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, James Faulkner, Nathan Lyon.
Pakistan could be less at home in Abu Dhabi
