DUBAI // Younis Khan doing laps of the boundary at the end of Day 3 of this Test was a telling sight.
Pakistan’s strength and conditioning coach was having a job keeping up with a player who turns 37 next week.
Younis looked fed up.
He must have been punishing himself for scoring just the 72 runs this time out. That means he has gone two innings without a century. He will probably be checking the fixture list this morning to see where his next run is coming from.
His effort took his aggregate to a scarcely believable 668 in the space of 28 days, but his latest effort was grounds for frustration.
The same could be said for most of the Pakistan batsmen, who have had their wings clipped by New Zealand’s bowlers in this Test.
“Sometimes you have to say to yourselves that the other side have played some good cricket,” said Grant Flower, Pakistan’s batting coach.
“It comes down to self belief. The guys have to keep believing in themselves.
“They have played so much good cricket so they should definitely not feel deflated.”
The situation is not unredeemable for Pakistan as they trail the tourists by 122 with four wickets still in hand.
Whether over the remaining two days either side can raise the scoring rate enough to put themselves in a position to force a win is difficult to imagine.
To this point, the cricket has been on the tepid side of attritional and there are no signs of that changing.
“It has worked for us in the recent past against Australia and New Zealand in the first Test,” Flower said of Pakistan’s slow scoring rate. These type of wickets don’t make for flamboyant cricket.
“You do have to be patient, get through the new ball, work your way through the spinners and get used to the conditions.
“It is a slow wicket, turning, and the Kiwis were very disciplined and bowled really well.
“We are still in the game. We will take 250 for four wickets today, but some big hundreds would have been good.”
Trent Boult, the New Zealand left-armer, reckons his side are in a strong position to push on.
“It was a very successful day,” said Boult, who dismissed Misbah-ul-Haq and then saw his dismissal of Asad Shafiq chalked off when an umpires review showed he had overstepped.
“Ish [Sodhi, the leg-spinner] bowled superbly, it is the best I have seen it come out of his hand in a long time.
“The more that wicket deteriorates, then the spinners are going to become more important.”
pradley@thenational.ae
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