Promising signs for the future after first glimpse of England’s new quicks

Cameron Ponsonby17-Mar-2022England’s new generation of Saqib Mahmood and Matt Fisher have known each other for years. Playing their junior cricket for rival counties Lancashire and Yorkshire, they encountered each other regularly, with one scorecard from an Under-14 game in 2011 reading Fisher 31 (64) b Mahmood.Eleven years later, they made their debuts together as England players – and almost before they had had time to sample the nerves of their first stint in the field, Fisher was in the thick of the action, with the eventful figures of 0.2-0-4-1.A Test debut at 24 would be a fast rise to the top for most. But Fisher made his professional debut as a 15-year-old in 2013. He’s been playing professional cricket for the last nine years of his life. In that context, his debut switches from being one of a youngster breezing through to the top and instead becomes a long-awaited one.What’s more, that doesn’t speak of the pressure that accompanies a debut at 15. Whether you like it or not, from that moment on you’re anointed as a future England player. And failure to reach that level will result in murmurs of wasted potential and a place in the pub-quiz annals of the Yorkshire Dales. Alongside the joy, pride, nerves and excitement that Fisher must have felt when he was told of his impending Test debut, you can only imagine a fair element of relief was involved as well. “I’ve done it.”When Fisher took his wicket – luring John Campbell in the channel outside off, one ball after being steered through third man for four – he did so with an explosion of joy before a sustained release of emotion as he pointed to the sky in memory of his dad, who died shortly before he made his professional debut nine years ago.Speaking on TalkSPORT 2, Darren Gough mentioned how impressed he’d been with Fisher’s maturity, having spent time together at Yorkshire through Gough’s role as Interim Managing Director. He spoke of Fisher’s clear abilities with the ball but mostly of his abilities as a leader who is able to mix confidence with empathy. Fisher may only be 24, but he’s already a seasoned professional who has been through more than most.”Everyone has something which means something to them,” Ben Stokes said at the close, after making his own gesture to his father following his second-day hundred. “It’s great to see someone like Fish – he’s had a difficult lot of years since his debut at 15 with injuries. To watching a young lad make his debut, bowl well and get his first Test wicket is quite special.”Matt Fisher and Saqib Mahmood made their England Test debuts•Getty ImagesA penny, however, for Mahmood’s thoughts when that wicket fell. Joy mixed with a tinge of envy, perhaps? After all, his debut was the one that had been trumpeted in advance, following the decisions to leave out both Ollie Robinson and Mark Wood. Fisher’s opportunity only arose on the morning of the match, when Craig Overton also pulled out with illness.Mahmood’s debut has hardly been diluted because of starting alongside Fisher but he does lose the intangible benefit of being the newest kid on the block. The two are different bowlers, one new-ball and one old-, but nevertheless, they’ve been dragged into a shootout whereas previously Mahmood’s rival bowler was unarmed and out of the team.Mahmood, however, proved with the excitement that he generated in the ODI series against Pakistan last summer that he’s unlikely to stay in the shadows for long. His action is 50% Brett Lee and 50% Shoaib Akthar, but his beard is 100% Brad Pitt. To watch Mahmood bowl is exciting. A bowler like Glenn McGrath would impress you over time with relentless accuracy, and a steady realisation that this is what elite performance looks like. But with Mahmood it takes just one ball. What is this? And where can I get more?Related

• Ben Stokes opted out of IPL auction because 'Test cricket is number one priority'

• Ben Stokes century sets up England declaration before West Indies dig in

• Ben Stokes vows to dig deeper after 'letting myself down' in the Ashes

• 'I'm ready for Australia' – Ben Stokes added to England's Ashes squad

His first wicket failed to arrive on Thursday evening but it’s surely only a matter of when and not if. Four overs of good pace were delivered in which he conceded just three runs. Mahmood is the fastest bowler in the team, now that Wood is out of action, and though he failed to breach 140kph in his opening gambit, there was at least one occasion when the ball seemed to gather pace through to Ben Foakes behind the stumps, in a way that has not often been seen over the past two days.”He came in and hit the wicket really hard,” Stokes said of Mahmood. “He got a few balls to go off the deck and going through a bit, considering what it was like on day one. I don’t want to eat my words here but I can’t see [the pitch] getting any better. I think the spinner is in the game and the seamers felt in the game the whole way, so it’ll be an exciting day tomorrow.””Seeing two lads get presented their caps, and being lucky enough to present one of them – I gave Saqqy his cap – there’s a lot of great things that can happen and memories that you can create playing international cricket,” Stokes added.”Seeing the excitement on Fisher’s face even when he got his cap, his smile was ear to ear for 15 minutes – and then obviously you could see how excited he was when he got his wicket today. It means a lot for him and a lot of other people – family and friends, everyone that has supported him.”After a somewhat false dawn for England’s new era in Antigua, circumstances have conspired to unleash the “good young bowling talent” that Andrew Strauss, the interim managing director, had referred to before the series began. And to judge by this most fleeting of first glimpses, it looks likely to be a fun one.

With rumours swirling, vultures hovering and the sword of Damocles hanging over him, Babar simply batted, and bat well, he did

Danyal Rasool15-Mar-2022The rumours swirled late into a wretched evening for Pakistan cricket, as they stared at just their third ever defeat at the National Stadium Karachi. The vultures hovered on the morning after, as the sun rose on what were to be the finishing touches of a Test match Babar Azam and his side were being taken apart in. This was Pakistan’s immovable fortress, an oasis of stability in a metropolis of perpetual change. And it was here that Australia were outplaying Pakistan, and it was Babar, the man from that other city, who apparently stood so thoroughly exposed in Karachi.What did he know about captaincy, after all? Wasn’t it the bowlers who had spearheaded Pakistan’s Test series victory over South Africa here last year? Wasn’t it Mohammad Rizwan and Shaheen Shah Afridi’s sensational form that had lifted Pakistan to the World T20 semi-finals on a tidal wave of exultant emotion?What, indeed, did he know about batting? Wasn’t he the bloke who played that rather sluggish innings in that semi-final that saw Pakistan eliminated? Isn’t it him who last crossed three figures in Test cricket before the world knew what Covid-19 meant? Didn’t he, one purple six-month patch aside, always struggle in Test cricket anyway? Who, after all, was this man at the helm of Pakistan cricket, given the reins to do as he pleased, projected as the face of a rejuvenated side that has such renewed ambitions to sit among the leaders of the food chain in the cricket economy?Related

• PCB summons ex-MCG curator ahead of Lahore Test

• Ghosts of Sydney cast uneasy shadow over Australia's Karachi quest

• Babar Azam 102*, Abdullah Shafique 71* as Pakistan fight after Australia set them 506

There is a naïve savagery to the way Pakistan cricketers are built up and brought down. There are shades of overbearing smugness in the way we think of Babar, primarily informed by the striking disparity between his suave self-assuredness on the field and its complete absence off it. Behind the mic at presentations and press conferences, there’s a coarseness to his delivery, and in this most English of games, his discomfort in that language can sometimes be confused with a lack of sophistication. He never appears quite at ease in TV commercials, which, as the face of Pakistan cricket, he’s asked to do plenty of. The smoothness that seems to come to Virat Kohli by nature, for example, Babar is frantically learning on the job.And so, when things aren’t quite going his way, the stick to beat him can easily be fetched from the lowest common denominator, and its method of deployment will necessarily be particularly savage. At 27, Babar has been entrusted the role of all-format captain in a country where the position comes with a sword of Damocles that doesn’t even hang over the country’s Prime Minister as ominously.It’s not a role he organically grew into over time, instead finding it thrust upon him by circumstance when first Sarfaraz Ahmed, and then Azhar Ali, were dispatched after loss of form with the bat. The departure of the PCB chairman who elevated Babar with a man perhaps not quite as overwhelmingly enthusiastic was an inevitable added stress. For a man never quite accustomed to the camera as he is to the batting crease, the burden to bear is heavy, the support with which to bear it in Pakistan extremely light.The buzz of activity that currently permeates Pakistan’s political ambience felt like it had infected its cricketing atmosphere as Babar walked out at the NSK. Azhar had just fallen in a manner whose farce was a tidy microcosm of the contest, ducking a Cameron Green bouncer that struck him on the gloves which, for some reason, he didn’t review. Babar was walking out to take his place, but would someone be replacing him soon enough?

There is a naïve savagery to the way Pakistan cricketers are built up and brought down. There are shades of overbearing smugness in the way we think of Babar, primarily informed by the striking disparity between his suave self-assuredness on the field and its complete absence off it

Babar began tentatively, as you might when you need nearly 500 runs to win and almost 150 overs to survive. Besides, Pakistan were slinking along at a run an over, so Babar could hardly be accused of inducing lethargy into the innings. But Mitchell Swepson dropped one short, and in that moment, Babar’s worries melted away. The length was picked up early, and there was a swish and flick of the blade. He might not have muttered an incantation, but as if by magic, the weight of the world on his shoulders suddenly vanished.The conditions might not have been as treacherous as yesterday; the reverse swing Australia’s quicks found yesterday wasn’t as palpable this afternoon. But what was absent in sideways movement was compensated for by a deteriorating pitch, where the uneven bounce and darkening patches of rough lay in wait like freshly laid traps. Australia were cornering Pakistan, who certainly didn’t feel like tigers.But even as Babar gained confidence, there was no guarantee of a rescue act. Babar the fourth-innings batter has been a deceptively ordinary batter, averaging 21.63 across his career. There’s almost no body of evidence to support any hopes that might be pinned on him for a miraculous final-innings rescue act. Time and again, an attack as balanced and potent as Australia’s sniffed around for vulnerabilities.It’s easy to forget how sensitive the shield sportspeople put up to protect themselves can be, and the damage any breach can do•AFP/Getty ImagesBut young men in Pakistan – particularly Pakistani cricket – get a lifetime’s practice of concealing weakness. Australia prowled around. Swepson bowled length, exploiting the pitch’s wear and tear while testing Babar’s footwork and patience; one run in 21 balls showed Babar was up to the challenge. Starc went full, only for Babar to punish him with two boundaries, beating him back. Cummins went short, but only for four balls, because Babar pulled three away for four. Green wandered full in search of the movement he found the previous day. Babar refused to engage, scoring no runs of the nine balls. The weaknesses hadn’t gone away, but for the moment, put to one side, not to be talked about.That shield of self-preservation never quite left Babar throughout the evening as the shadows lengthened. A score of 100 might be an arbitrary figure, but there was nothing arbitrary about the psychological shot in the arm it appeared to give Babar when, five overs out from the end of the day, a sweep off Swepson got him there. Even as the crowd roared, the celebration was somewhat subdued; a man with as many responsibilities as his knows when a job hasn’t yet been done.It’s easy to forget how sensitive the shield sportspeople put up to protect themselves can be, and the damage any breach can do. Pakistan’s best batter in more than a generation might have had his broken recently, but a superb knock from a cricketer still close to the top of his game will have gone a long way towards repairing it.On a day when the rumours swirled and the vultures hovered, Babar simply batted. That may be all he can do, but on days like these, boy can he do it well.

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start writing!