Naseem Shah's frustrations with yet another placid Rawalpindi pitch spilled over into the press-conference room, with the fast bowler saying Pakistan needed to reconsider how to secure home advantage in Test cricket. On a sizzlingly hot fourth day, Pakistan were kept out on the field for all but the last 10 overs by Bangladesh's lower middle order, who piled on 565 across more than 167 overs, effectively killing off Pakistan's hopes of winning a first home Test since 2021.
Naseem, playing his first Test in over a year following a long-term injury, bowled 27.3 of those overs, taking 3 for 93. "We need to be honest," he said. "It's been too many series where we get these types of pitches. The groundstaff tried their best to make this pitch good for bowling, but perhaps because of the heat and sunshine there isn't much help from the pitch. We need to think about how to extract home advantage, because you have to find a way to produce results from these games, otherwise you're not utilising home advantage."
When Pakistan returned to playing Test cricket at home in 2019, the country was considered the liveliest place in South Asia for Test-match fast bowling. This was epitomised by South Africa's tour of 2020-21, when pace, bounce and seam movement were consistent features throughout both Test matches, and Shaheen Afridi and Hasan Ali combined to take nine of South Africa's ten wickets in the fourth innings on the final day to seal the series.
Every since, however, Pakistan has become something of a graveyard for Test-match fast bowling. Only 14 wickets fell over five days in a Rawalpindi Test against Australia in March 2022, when then-PCB chairman Ramiz Raja admitted to neutering a pitch that would go on to be rated below average by the ICC.
Flat decks have almost become the norm across Pakistan venues since, especially in Rawalpindi and Karachi. Since the start of 2022, bowlers average more than 43 in Pakistan, more than eight runs more per wicket than the next country on the list, Sri Lanka. Of the 21 Test innings that have lasted beyond 150 overs since the start of 2022, six have come in Pakistan. On three of those six occasions, Pakistan have been the bowling team.
Pakistan's home results, too, have nosedived; they last won a home Test during that 2020-21 South Africa series, and have lost four and drawn the other four since.
All this has left Naseem wondering if Pakistan need to rethink their approach to Test cricket at home. "The bowlers have put in effort," he said. "I'm playing a Test after more than a year and took me time to find my rhythm. The kind of weather we have right now, it's extremely hot, and we didn't get the kind of help from the surface as a bowling unit as we expected.
"If we're incapable of making the sort of pitches that help fast bowlers, then we should look at whether we can produce spin wickets. However you do it, you need to use home advantage. People come to enjoy Test cricket in this heat, so you need to entertain them. What shouldn't happen is you're on the field at home and thinking this is hard work. The more you keep cricket entertaining, the better. It's something we need to seriously think about."
That the series is being played in August doesn't help, either, with heat and humidity combining to dry out surfaces. This one in Rawalpindi was left to bake under the sun before the match got underway, with early morning rain forcing a delayed start. Pakistan's jam-packed winter schedule, as well as Bangladesh's scheduled tour of India in September, meant this sub-optimal window was the only one left in which these two Test matches could be accommodated.
Pakistan have made no secret of the fact that there is an enormous difference between their expectations of the surface and how it has turned out. The hosts, who brought in experienced Australian curator Tony Hemming ahead of this season, were so confident the pitch would offer assistance to the seamers that they went with an all-pace attack at home for just the second time in nearly three decades. When, to Azhar Mahmood's public surprise, that expectation was conclusively thwarted, it left those fast bowlers toiling away in close to 40-degree heat as Bangladesh's batters ground them out. Moreover, Pakistan also fell behind the over rate on both the third and fourth days, despite turning to 50 overs of spin from the allrounder Salman Ali Agha and their part-timers to alleviate the workload on their quicks.
Naseem, though, believes there isn't enough in the surface for spinners, either, rendering, in his way, questions over Pakistan's selection moot. "We believed the fast bowlers would get plenty of help here. But what we were expecting didn't exactly happen. With four fast bowlers, your mindset is to take wickets with the quick balls. However, I don't think it'll spin either, because there's grass on the pitch. But the pitch is very dry underneath, and the ball isn't getting much help off the grass because of that, even if it appears like it might off the surface."
While there has been a bounty of criticism of Pakistan's pitches from outside, this is the first time the call has come so loudly and clearly from inside the house. That Naseem, arguably Pakistan's best Test bowler, has been reduced to wondering if trying to produce pace-friendly pitches in Pakistan is worth it after all, the urgency to fix what appeared to have been broken in 2022 has never felt more pressing.