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Saeed Ajmal lives the dream for Pakistan as England self-destruct
The mystery about Saeed Ajmal's day in Dubai was not his teesra but how England were caused such embarrassment on a surface as harmless as an empty pincushion
It is just as well that the ball is not turning much. Saeed Ajmal may have caused havoc if that were the case. The mischievous Pakistan spinner, whose Test career did not begin until he was 31, could scarcely believe his luck in the gentle sunshine of Dubai. Maybe the England batsmen had been suckered by all the talk of his teesra. But surely the top team in the world cannot be that naive?
Somehow, as if in a dream sequence of Ajmal's making, batsmen came and went, self-destructing to order. In his 18th Test he was causing as much havoc as the giants of the past. Neither Bishen Bedi, nor Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, nor Abdul Qadir, nor Muttiah Muralitharan, nor Shane Warne had caused England's best batsmen such embarrassment on a surface as harmless as an empty pincushion.
The ball neither turned, nor jumped. Occasionally it skidded a little disconcertingly. Frequently England batsmen struggled to pick up the length of the ball. Anything on target caused them to shudder. Sorry to disappoint those who relish a good tale but England were not undermined by Ajmal's teesra. (If he revealed this innovation, it is a round-arm sling designed to keep the ball low. Two such deliveries were gently patted away to midwicket without a problem).
No, England were undermined, not by the teesra, but by themselves and it was not so much a failure of technique, but of the mind. One of the problems when facing slow bowling is that there is time to think. So the brain comes into play as much as any instinctive hand/eye co-ordination.
And England batted brainlessly, making poor choices all along the way. Ajmal, bowling no rubbish, just sat back and waited for another batsman's error. In Test cricket on a true surface it is usually necessary to wait a bit longer.
Of the specialists only Ian Bell was truly defeated by the bowler. Batsmen from Don Bradman downwards have been vulnerable first ball, though Bell may not be quite so ruthlessly efficient as was the ultimate practitioner. On this occasion Bell was confronted with Ajmal's doosra straightaway. It was perfectly pitched; it barely turned away from the bat but held its line just enough to find the edge. This was a superb piece of bowling by someone who likes to bowl his doosra immediately to a fresh right-handed batsman, a preference worth putting in the dossier.
But the rest of England's batsmen made mistakes. Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss misjudged the length of deliveries they were trying to attack. This was uncharacteristic of them, so much so that Strauss's last ball was deemed by some to be the dreaded teesra – but only after the England captain had missed it.
Kevin Pietersen's dismissal was the most disturbing. After 28 deliveries for two runs he missed a straight ball from Ajmal and was out leg before wicket on review. He was guilty of playing a premeditated shot, something coaches at any level discourage. But in this instance, when there was absolutely no backlift, it was a premeditated block, the last sort of shot Pietersen should be aiming to play.
Here Pietersen seemed to be setting himself to play an innings of Boycottian application. Bad thinking. Pietersen does not have the technique (look how far in front of his body his bat was against Ajmal: he seemed to be searching for the ball rather than watching it). A Boycott forward defensive was often a source of despair for a bowler; patently there was no way through. A Pietersen forward defensive cheers the bowler up.
Nor does Pietersen have the mind-set for a long defensive innings. It is not his way. This is not a summons for him to bat with total abandon. But he is much better when he seeks to impose himself on slow bowlers.
Neither Eoin Morgan, despite an impish start to his series, nor Stuart Broad hinted that they were thinking clearly either. The ball rarely bounces over the top of the stumps here, so sweeping straight deliveries carries a huge risk. Both sought reviews and on both occasions the ball was shown to be hitting the middle of middle stump. It is still allowed to hit down the ground in this game as Graeme Swann, the other recipient of a fine delivery in England's innings – from Abdur Rehman – briefly demonstrated.
Broad, for all his virtues, is a very poor judge of his own dismissals. There cannot be a batsman in the world whose success rate when asking for a review is so low. These statistics are not yet readily available but the impression is that Broad the batsman always seeks a review and is always out. When England are feeling a little more cheerful he may be tackled about this.
But it was Ajmal and his team that could rest happy at the close. From London there came murmurs about the validity of Ajmal's action, but that has become an occupational hazard for him whenever he takes wickets. In Dubai there were seven of them in a career best haul and this is before the surface starts to disintegrate.
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Topic: England vs Pakistan (Read 101679 times)