Pakistan team is touring the Land Down Under for a three-test series starting tomorrow. The team will play under the new captain, Shan Masood, who is taking over the reins from the star batsman Babar Azam. They will face the present World Test Champions and an extreme Australian side, who have dominated International cricket this year. However, a major responsibility of the young side is “to win a test match in Australia”.

Even though test cricket has three possible results: win, loss, or a tie, Pakistan cricket has played in Australia with only one result for the last 28 years, and unfortunately win and tie have been off the charts for the visitors. The last time Pakistan won a test in Australia, PV Narasimha Rao was the prime minister of India, Babar Azam was a year old, Shane Warne had 200 wickets international wickets, and Mark Taylor was the captain of Australia.

It was a three-test series and Pakistan was already down 0-2 against Australia when in the third game, a century by Ijaz Ahmed and a five-wicket haul by Mushtaq Ahmed gave Pakistan the upper hand in the test. Pakistan had a lead of 42 runs at the end of the first innings, and while batting in their second innings, they added 204 runs to post a target of 247 runs. While chasing, Australia could only manage 172 runs, with Mushtaq Ahmed again taking 4 wickets only to secure the win for Pakistan, their last in 28 years now.

Pakistan’s losing streak

Later on, Pakistan toured Australia in 1999-00 and ended up with a clean sweep in a three-game series, followed by a string of clean sweeps in 2004-05, 2009-10, 2016-17, and 2019-20 tours. The team has lost 14 out of the 14 games it has played in Australia and failed to secure a single draw.

Pakistan’s squad to Australia 2023-24

This time, Pakistan is heading for the important tour, keeping in mind their poor performance in the World Test Championship over the years. While Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan, Sarfaraz Khan and Shan Masood will be responsible for the team’s batting. While Babar Azam averages 44 against Australia, his average comes down to 27 in Australia. Imam Ul Haq has very little to no experience of test cricket in Australia, with only one test where he has scored only 2 runs in two innings. Abdulla Shafique is a newbie.

Only Mohammad Rizwan and Sarfaraz Khan have a great record in Australia. In the 2019 tour, Rizwan scored 177 runs, including an innings of 95 in Brisbane. Sarfaraz Ahmed averages 38 in Australia too.

Pakistan’s bowling unit for Australian tour

Shaheen Shah Afridi will find himself alone without Naseem Shah, who is missing out due to a shoulder injury and Haris Rauf, who preferred Big Bash League over national duty.

The pace bowling unit is the most crucial weapon in the arsenal if a team tours Australia. A young inexperienced test bowling unit consisting of Mir Hamza, Mohammad Wasim Jr., Khurram Shehzad, Faheem Ashraf and Aamer Jamal will accompany Shaheen on the tour. While Mir Hamza and Mohammad Wasim Jr. have just 2 test wickets each in three games and two games respectively, Khurram Shehzad and Aamer Jamal are yet to make test debut. Faheem Ashraf would be the go-to bowler for Babar after Shaheen who has little exposure to international test cricket with 24 wickets in 16 games.

Interestingly, Shaheen did not play the game against Prime Minister’s XI, and the rest of the bowling unit bowled 141 overs and only managed to take 4 wickets. When exposed to the mighty Australian side, including David Warner, Steve Smith, Marnus Labuschagne, Usman Khawaja and Travis Head, with a fierce bowling unit of their pace trio and Nathan Lyon, it would be interesting to see if this team will be able to manage a draw or emerge victorious, or just better their record of losing down under!