An even bigger selection headache for Pakistan
There’s a sense that both sides learned everything and nothing from a remarkable second Test. Pakistan’s winning formula – an all-spin attack running amok on a ninth-day pitch – will not be replicable in Rawalpindi, leaving their selectors pondering more gung-ho chopping and changing. Babar Azam, Naseem Shah and Shaheen Shah Afridi are too talented to be sidelined for long, and Naseem in particular might be needed in Rawalpindi. They also have an almost comically underperforming opening pairing to address, the trouble being that Abdullah Shafique and Saim Ayub are alternating between big scores and total failures, so whom to drop? Victory in Multan was a well-deserved tonic for an embattled cricketing nation but are we any the wiser about where they go from here?
