DUBAI // No wonder Pakistan look like they are running out of puff. Given the small window they have been handed in which to shoehorn their home Test programme, the last thing they need is New Zealand putting up a fight.
A lost toss, some fine batting and a sizeable dose of predicable Kiwi pluckiness has left Pakistan chasing the game for the first time this winter. It seems like the wind has been lost from their sails.
Take the case of Zulfiqar Babar. The left-arm spinner took four wickets to take his tally to 23 in the past 27 days.
It has taken him 212 overs to do so. Withering work for legs that turn 36 next month.
There is still a match and a half to go in Pakistan’s exhausting schedule of five Test matches in the space of 41 days and Sharjah, where these two teams meet next, is hardly famous for being bowler friendly.
By the end of it, Babar will probably be grateful he was able to spend the first 34 years of his life saving his energy to play Test cricket.
Yet he is not in the mood for excuses. “I’m not feeling fatigued,” he said, after sending down 45 overs in the first innings against New Zealand.
“The way the guys performed in the previous series against Australia and started against New Zealand, we have good momentum so you don’t feel any fatigue or tiredness.”
Babar might rightly be happy to put a positive spin on the workload, but Pakistan have definitely started to show signs of wear in this Test.
Their fielding was ragged, most obviously when Rahat Ali made a comical dropped catch off a leading edge from Mark Craig. As skied balls go, it was relatively simple, but Rahat looked as edgy as a buckaroo while trying to take it.
New Zealand deserve to be commended for the way they have combated their hosts so far in this Test, especially given their travails in the first Test in Abu Dhabi.
Scoring their runs at 2.58 per over may go against the grain for a side usually given to attacking cricket.
But the fact they have made 403 of them, and reminded Pakistan that Test cricket is not easy-come, easy-go in the process, augurs well for them.
Add in the two wickets of the Pakistani openers, which the Black Caps’ spinners, Ish Sodhi and Craig, claimed before the close, and it equals a fine couple of days’ work.
“The tail did well to get us through to 400,” said BJ Watling, the New Zealand wicketkeeper who stumped Taufeeq Umar off Craig’s bowling.
“There is a little bit more pace in this wicket and a little bit more bounce [than Abu Dhabi], which I think our spinners will be happy with.”
pradley@thenational.ae
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