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KARACHI: Saud Shakeel was thrown at the deep end as soon as he made his way into the Pakistan Test squad. Against an England side riding high on “Bazball” — their ultra-aggressive style playing Test cricket — Saud responded with grace and maturity to show he belonged in the Test arena. Although Pakistan were whitewashed for the first-ever time in a Test series at home, Saud was the one inspiring hope; taking Pakistan close in two of the three games.
The 27-year-old, bred and born in the chaotic streets of Karachi, has brought with him to the Pakistan squad grit, composure and reliability. He’s living his childhood dream — the pursuit of which began at the famed UBL Sports Academy and a lot of hard work and patience was needed to make it come true.
Saud scored four half-centuries against England — two of which came in the fourth innings and brought Pakistan close to victories before batting collapses let them down. The performances have seen Saud become one of the key members of Pakistan’s batting lineup, but for him, that’s the bare minimum.
“It doesn’t matter if you are playing your first match for Pakistan or the 100th, when you play for your country, it is a given that you are an important member of the team and you are required to perform,” he told Dawn in an interview on Saturday. “We are professional players and it is important for us to perform, everyone has their roles and responsibilities and I tried my level best to take us towards wins and finish the matches but couldn’t do it, unfortunately.”
In the first Test against England in Rawalpindi, Saud arrived at the crease with Pakistan at 25-2 in pursuit of a 343-run target with more than a day to play. He stitched up a 64-run partnership with Imam-ul-Haq and then an 87-run stand for the fifth wicket with Mohammad Rizwan before getting caught at short-cover for 76.
In Multan, Saud fell victim to a poor decision by third umpire Joel Wilson to be ruled caught behind off Mark Wood after scoring a brilliant 94 to bring Pakistan back into the game after they were reeling at 67-2 in their chase of 355.
On both occasions, Saud’s wickets triggered Pakistan’s eventual falls that led to 74 and 27-run defeats.
“The fourth innings in Test cricket is considered difficult and it actually is as well,” he said. “We were chasing targets on both occasions and lost back-to-back wickets, including those of mine and the players who followed. When you are chasing big targets, you have to play well from the very start till the end to be successful.”
The southpaw had a century in his sights in Multan and a few more runs for Pakistan would have seen a whole different story unfold. “My dismissal in Multan was a bit controversial too,” he rued. “Had I made 15-20 more runs, England would have panicked and would have experimented things which might have given us more chances to score runs. I’d say due to small mistakes we were whitewashed, had we not made those mistakes, it would have been different.”
CAUGHT OFF GUARD BY ‘BAZBALL’
Saud believes one of the reasons behind England’s historic series win in Pakistan was how they started it. Led by an attack-minded captain in the form of Ben Stokes, the visitors plundered more than 500 runs on the first day of the opening Test.
The ruthless onslaught on the Pakistan bowling line-up — which included three debutants — was something Saud thought hurt Pakistan’s confidence and England ensured they kept the upper hand throughout the remaining part of the series.
“The way they started the series, scoring 500 on the first day, we weren’t expecting that,” Saud revealed. “I can’t speak on behalf of the whole team but personally, I wasn’t expecting that they would attack this way. When a team attacks like that, it’s obvious for the other team’s confidence to go down a bit. They got an upper hand at the start and they kept carrying it forward.”
Saud praised Stokes’ captaincy and noted the all-rounder’s field placements were such that trapped the Pakistan batters by allowing them to play their shots freely.
“When they attacked then we also countered them by scoring quick runs but that required us to play over the top or for example play more sweep shots,” he said. “They ensured they didn’t leak too many runs but tested us with field settings and invited us to use our skill to hit through and over the fielders. We were successful in doing that at some points but also made mistakes.”
‘BABAR A GOOD CAPTAIN’
While Stokes was commended for his shrewd captaincy, his Pakistan counterpart Babar came under heavy criticism during the England series.
The batter, who was appointed as Pakistan’s Test captain in late 2020, was called out for being timid and defensive with his decisions.
Saud said he was baffled at the criticism over Babar and believed the 27-year-old was leading Pakistan at a time when they are without their best players due to injuries.
“I don’t understand why people criticise Babar,” Saud said. “He is a good captain and whatever decision he takes has a thought behind it. Most of the times he looks to attack and he has never asked us to have a defensive approach. There were six debutants and our bowling unit was quite inexperienced and England therefore had an edge. It’s not that easy for Babar as well when you have a young bowling line-up and he has to take his time to understand his bowlers and that applies vice versa as well.”
Following the drubbing against England, Pakistan are set to play two Tests against New Zealand in Karachi, the first of which starts on Monday. Saud hopes to deliver again for Pakistan but this time, he’s eager to end up on the winning side.