Former England captain Nasser Hussain has taken a hilarious dig at the pitch on offer in the first Test between England and Pakistan. The surface in Multan has offered nothing for the bowlers since Day 1 with two teams amassing a combined 1379 runs for 17 wickets. The fact that Pakistan are on the verge of losing this Test is largely due to their undoing with the bat in the second innings.
Moreover, England bowlers Gus Atkinson and Brydon Carse bent their backs to eke the life out of the Multan surface that is refusing to crack and help the spinners. For the unversed, Shan Masood and Abdullah Shafique smashed centuries for Pakistan while Joe Brook and Harry Brook made merry of the serene batting conditions scoring 262 and 317 runs respectively.
Their knocks helped England post a mammoth total of 823 runs before declaring and took a massive lead of 267 runs in the first innings. Nasser Hussain was amazed with the pitch on offer in Multan. While he took a hilarious dig to start with, the former England captain felt that such surfaces are not good for the longevity of Test cricket.
"If a batsman misses three balls, he should be declared out on this track," he said. "Test cricket cannot afford for this pitch to continue playing in the same way for all five days. It is incredibly flat and, for the future of the longer format, pitches need to do something.
"At the moment, it has done nothing for two days. No spin, no swing, no reverse swing. It is too batter-friendly and Test cricket needs an even contest between bat and ball," Hussain wrote in his column in Daily Mail. It remains to be seen if Pakistan will be able to save the Test on the final day which looks unlikely as of now.
