ABU DHABI // Many are the ways to regenerate a side, almost as many as the ways in which a side degenerate. After this year’s World Cup, it was clear both England and Pakistan were sides in need of regenerating.
Pakistan were going to lose an influential captain. England needed to ditch a philosophy. They have since gone about moving on in contrasting fashion but if for no other reason than by dint of the tests they have faced, England emerge sturdier, for now.
Buoyed perhaps by the surfaces this summer, but emboldened in spirit, England went at both World Cup finalists this summer with discernibly renewed vigour.
For the first time since the late 1980s and early 1990s, they looked like they were, not ahead, but parallel with the curve. In six of 11 games, their batting crossed 300 (and 400 once). In only three did they score at less than six an over.
They still ended up losing as many as they won, but they took both series to the final game. That is no ordinary achievement against Australia and New Zealand.
Here will be another test, on slower surfaces, against a differently accented bowling attack. England’s batting pyrotechnics dimmed a little in the second summer series against Australia, in part because of the new fielding restrictions. Those will be key here, too.
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“I think it will be a huge learning curve,” captain Eoin Morgan said in Abu Dhabi.
“That’s one thing we’ve gained over the last six months. We’ve created an atmosphere in which learning becomes very easy for our young guys coming in.
“Probably, no one would have given us a hope in hell against Australia and New Zealand. But they were two very competitive series, and we managed to turn over New Zealand.
“This, again, will be different. But I think the culture and the platform the summer gave us will hold us in good stead.”
Given that they are perpetually in the throes of one regeneration or another, you would think Pakistan were used to this state of being. Yet they have stuttered on under Azhar Ali as if entirely unfamiliar with the process. How much of a regeneration is this, really, given Younis Khan and Shoaib Malik are in the squad? The latter at least has performances this year to merit selection.
But results have not been especially comforting. Only in the hindsight of other results does the 3-0 loss to Bangladesh look a little less worrisome. Series wins over Zimbabwe have been harder-fought than they should have been. The series win in Sri Lanka was more commendable.
Above all, it is in their bowling that Pakistan have struggled. Most gallingly for them, they have lacked bite, which has not often been an accusation to fling at them.
In many ways, it is in ODIs that they truly miss the thrust of Saeed Ajmal and Mohammed Hafeez, in particular, and their twin abilities to take wickets and stifle run-rates.
In the Ajmal era, roughly from April 2009 to September 2014, Pakistan bowled a side out once every three games. Since then (in a much smaller sample) they have done it once every four-and-a-half games.
Predictably, Azhar was asked extensively about the recall of Younis. Equally predictably, he drowned any question of its benefits in a deluge of platitudes.
Of more urgency is the need to move up those rankings. They are currently an abysmal eighth.
“We are working hard to pick that up as it’s a young team,” Azhar said. “We will try to continue our performances from Zimbabwe and in Sri Lanka.
“Our Test team is the same for the last five six years, especially the batting is the same for quite some time. But in ODIs a lot of new players have come after the World Cup. I am new as captain, so hopefully this team needs time to settle.”
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