Pakistan take on England in the first game of the three match bilateral series at the Multan Cricket Stadium, Multan. The game is scheduled to be played on Oct 07 at 10:30 AM IST. England is aiming to challenge struggling Pakistan with a new-look pace attack in the opening test of a three-match series, starting in the searing heat of Multan on Monday.
Ben Stokes’ England takes on Pakistan in a three-Test series starting on Monday, buoyed by memories of an astonishing 3-0 series sweep in 2022. England, third in the world rankings after winning five of its past six Tests, is facing a Pakistan team at a low ebb after being crushed by Bangladesh.
PAK vs ENG : Previous Performances
England head into this series after back to back series wins against West Indies and Sri Lanka and would be hoping to carry on their run when they take on Pakistan this term. Even though England won the series against Sri Lanka, they lost the last match as Sri Lanka dominated the game and won the match with eight wickets to spare.
Following their disastrous campaign in India, England have had a rejig of sorts with an eye on the 2025 away Ashes series. They have landed in Pakistan with an entirely different and inexperienced fast bowling attack. Their regular captain remains unavailable for selection and James Anderson’s transformation as a fast bowling mentor continues. Even their spin-bowling unit, led by Jack Leach, lacks experience with Shoaib Bashir and Rehan Ahmed only nine and four Tests old.
The hosts Pakistan enter this series following their most humiliating Test defeat. They have now lost five Tests on the bounce and their last seven Tests at home have resulted in five defeats. Pakistan, however, did not make many efforts to reverse the trend. The Test players were involved in a domestic one-day tournament in the intervening period and their only red ball practice was during the five-day-long pre-series camp in Multan.
Unlike their opponents, Pakistan has struggled in red ball cricket this year as they head into this series after five straight losses, they lost the series against Australia and Bangladesh prior to this game. As per our calculations, England are favourites in the upcoming game. Less than two years ago, England handed Pakistan a 26-run defeat in what was the last Test played at the Multan Cricket Stadium. It might have been the closest margin of defeat of the series, but the defeat inflicted a psychological blow that Pakistan seem unable to come out of.
Pakistan has a woeful record in home test matches and hasn’t won at home since beating South Africa 2-0 in early 2021, while losing to England, Australia and Bangladesh. New Zealand also came close, but Pakistan managed to draw the series 0-0.
Much has changed since then. England have made adjustments in their ultra-aggressive approach towards Test cricket following their 4-1 hammering in India at the start of the year. Pakistan have a new captain and a new coaching set-up following successive changes in the Pakistan Cricket Board. The curiosity, however, around what pitch Pakistan will roll out and what style of play suits Pakistan resources the most remain.
PAK vs ENG : Head to Head
England have an upper hand in this fixture against Pakistan 29-21. In the last series, England dominated the game and won the series 3-0.
Head to Head
Pakistan: 21
England: 29
PAK vs ENG : Pitch Report
The Multan pitch has some grass on it but it was shaved on Saturday afternoon. England are not expecting the ball to reverse as early as it did on their last visit in 2022, as the square and outfield are much greener. There could, however, be some low bounce, to judge by the practice strips. Historically the venue has suited the team that batting first, the last two of the three matches have been won by the team that batted first which makes us believe both sides would prefer to bat first in the upcoming game.
With 10% chances of disruptions we believe climate would not play a major role in the game. Maximum temperature is expected to be 37C during the game and minimum temperature is expected to be 26 degree C. Multan will be sweltering throughout the first Test with the first day expected to be the hottest with the temperature rising to 38 degrees.
The weather will hover around mid-30s in the remaining days. The ground staff shaved the grass after Saturday’s training session but kept the 22-yards covered throughout the Sunday morning to ensure the pitch retains the desired moisture level. It is anybody’s guess how the pitch will behave but it is likely to assist the seamers at the start, flat out in the middle, and provide turn to the spinners towards the end.
PAK vs ENG : Big Picture : England start in Pakistan amidst the absence of previous captain Ben Stokes
England last month wrapped up a 2-1 series victory against Sri Lanka without skipper Ben Stokes, but he remains the team’s undisputed leader and talisman.
The 33-year-old all-rounder misses the first Test after failing to recover from a torn hamstring and it remains to be seen whether he will bowl when he does return. The inclusion of Stokes as a specialist batter would alter the balance of the side England favored in the recent Sri Lanka series, where it played five frontline bowlers. The visitor could opt to replace one of its regular top order with the skipper but it is more likely the side would play four specialist bowlers and rely on Joe Root’s off-spin to supplement the attack.
Stokes has not played for two months but he showed his worth against the West Indies, scoring three fifties in his last four innings of the series.
Talking of such things… England’s hosts are past masters of the chaotic. Leaving aside their grim recent record of five Test defeats in a row – two of which came in a seminal home series loss to Bangladesh last month – Pakistan’s brand of dysfunction is best expressed in the nonsensical build-up to this series, which involved a near-daily churn of contradictory briefings about the preferred venues for the three Tests.
With Karachi and Lahore out of commission, and Rawalpindi pre-booked by an international conference, serious thought had been given to booting the show out to Abu Dhabi instead – much to Brendon McCullum’s chagrin – before back-to-back fixtures in Multan were finally settled upon late last month. Despite the country’s numerous hidden charms, Pakistan has never been a favorite venue for the travelling fan, and with numerous tour operators giving up on their plans amid the uncertainty, that is unlikely to change in the coming weeks.
However you view the build-up (or lack thereof), this is a match-up that deserves better than the shoe-horn treatment that it is being offered. England’s last trip to Pakistan in December 2022 was an extraordinary triumph, set in motion by their pedal-to-the-metal batting in the series opener in Rawalpindi, but epitomized by Ben Stokes’ magnificent captaincy throughout: from his perfectly weighted declaration to force victory on that dead deck.
To his innovative slip-free field placings to prize out 20 wickets in similarly inhospitable conditions in Multan, and all the way through to his fearless faith in the rookie Rehan Ahmed, whose five wickets on debut in Karachi put a romantic seal on the campaign.
Times have changed fairly quickly since then, not least in the evolution of England’s bowling attack. None of the three key protagonists on that previous tour – Anderson, Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson – will be making the return trip, with their not-quite-like-for-like replacements, Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse and Gus Atkinson combining in a seam attack that has played precisely zero overseas Tests in the whole of the Bazball era.
What’s more, with Stokes absent through injury, the pressure will be on Ollie Pope to conjure the same alchemy from the tools at his disposal. Though he acquitted himself well as a leader in his three Tests against Sri Lanka, Pope was arguably guilty of over-attacking in their final-match loss at the Kia Oval – a trait which revealed the degree of subtlety in Stokes’ methods that can sometimes be lost in the bravado of his team’s overall approach.
If Pakistan have an edge, therefore, it will be in the make-up of their bowling attack. The union of Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah and Aamer Jamal is, on paper, the best attack that they have fielded in months, and offers a cutting edge that was absent for much of that 2022 campaign in particular. Though Jamal has played just three Tests, each of those came in a superb 18-wicket debut series in Australia, while a fully-fit Naseem could yet leave England longing for the 150kph exocets that Wood brought to that previous success.
No doubt the context of this series will come flooding back out once the teams take the field and Test cricket’s familiar rhythms are back on centre stage. But right now, with no build-up, no fanfare – quite possibly no fans either – it does rather feel like cricket for the sake of cricket. The team that manages to park that existentialism the best may well steal an important march in the course of the coming five days.
PAK vs ENG : In the Spotlight : Abrar Ahmed and Chris Woakes
England’s batters – five of whom are set to make their second Test appearance in Multan – will doubtless recall Pakistan’s standout performer from that first visit two years ago. With his Harry Potter glasses and a name that came pre-loaded with wizard-themed headlines, Abrar Ahmed could have been on a hiding to nothing in his maiden Pakistan appearance.
Instead, he simply ripped through the repertoire that had served him so well in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, to claim seven first-innings wickets and 11 in all in a memorably effective debut. Though England climbed into him at close to five an over across his 51 overs, that was in part a tribute to the mystery of his methods – hit out, before being got out – as epitomised by a wickedly delivered carrom ball that did for Zak Crawley in the first innings.
The stats are so stark that the man himself has given up pushing back against them. In 34 home Tests, Chris Woakes has claimed 137 wickets at a world-class average of 21.59. In 20 appearances overseas, however, those figures are a more earth-bound 36 at 51.88 – and he had basically abandoned hope of ever being called upon in foreign climes when he was overlooked for the tour of India earlier this year.
But circumstances change fast, and with Anderson and Stuart Broad gone, and with Stokes’ hamstring depriving the seam attack of another of its wisest old heads, the value of Woakes’ experience supersedes any doubts about his impact in such conditions. He’s here on merit, too, it should be said, after a stellar summer as England’s attack leader – 24 wickets at 20.25 against West Indies and Sri Lanka ensure he will begin this campaign with faith in his methods, and the confidence of his team-mates.
PAK vs ENG : Vital Stats that matters
- England’s 26-run victory on their last visit to Multan in December 2022 was also the most recent Test hosted at the venue.
- In total, Pakistan have won three of the previous six tests held in Multan, including England’s only other visit in 2005-06. India won by an innings in 2004, while a draw against West Indies completes the set.
- Joe Root needs 71 to overtake Alastair Cook’s tally of 12742 runs, the most made by an England batter, and the fifth-most by any player in Test history.
- Salman Ali Agha has the second most runs for a number seven batter in the last two years. He has made 711 runs at 47.40 and his strike rate stands at 66.07
- Joe Root is just 14 runs away from completing 1,000 Test runs this year
- Except for Jack Leach, no England bowler has played a first-class match in Pakistan
- Pakistan have not won a Test at home since February 2021
- With 410 runs, Mohammad Rizwan is the leading run scorer for Pakistan in this calendar year.
- With 986 runs, Joe Root is the leading run scorer for England in this calendar year.
PAK vs ENG : Team News
Pakistan:
Shan Masood confirmed Pakistan’s line-up on the eve of the match. Aamir Jamal returns to the Pakistan side after he missed the Bangladesh Tests because of a back injury that he sustained during the County Championship. The fast bowling all-rounder made a stunning debut with a six-for at Perth in December and capped off their series with a sparkling 82 and another six-wicket haul in Sydney. In total, he took 18 wickets on the tour.
Dropped for the second Bangladesh Test, Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah also mark their returns to the XI. Pakistan’s top seven remains the same as the team will be going in with two spinners in all-rounder Salman Ali Agha and Abrar Ahmed.
Pakistan Playing XI : Saim Ayub, Abdullah Shafique, Shan Masood (c), Babar Azam, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan (wk.), Salman Ali Agha, Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, Aamir Jamal, and Abrar Ahmed
England :
The tourists confirmed their XI two days out from the match. Ollie Pope will captain England in what will be his first match at the helm overseas. Zak Crawley, who set the tone for England’s aggressive batting approach with a remarkable hundred on the first day of the series in 2022, returns to the line-up after nursing a broken finger and Brydon Carse will make Test debut.
Chris Woakes will play his first Test in Asia since 2016. He has played only five matches in the continent – across India and Bangladesh – and averages over 52. And Bashir joins Jack Leach in the two-man spin attack.
England Playing XI – Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope (C), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jamie Smith, Chris Woakes, Gus Atkinson, Brydon Carse (Debut), Jack Leach, and Shoaib Bashir
Pak vs Eng Fantasy XI : Mohammad Rizwan, Jamie Smith, Ben Duckett, Saud Shakeel, Ollie Pope, Harry Brook, Joe Root, Agha Salman, Abrar Ahmed, Naseem Shah, Shoaib Bashir
PAK vs ENG : Best Probable batters and Bowlers
Mohammad Rizwan to be Pakistan’ top batter
Mohammad Rizwan has been the shining light for Pakistan in this calendar year as he has scored 410 runs with an average of 82 and is the leading run scorer for his side which makes him our top pick in the upcoming game.
Joe Root to be England’ top batter
Joe Root has been sensational thus far as he itches closer to the record of most runs in Test cricket. In 2024 he scored 986 and is the leading run scorer for England which makes him our top pick in the upcoming game.
Noman Ali to be Pakistan’ top bowler
Khurram Shahzad would be a big miss for Pakistan in this series. Noman Ali has been called up who has bagged 47 wickets in 15 Tests and would play a key role in this series which makes him our top pick in the upcoming game.
Shoaib Bashir to be England’ top bowler
Shoaib Bashir has been a revelation for England since he made his debut earlier this year. So far this season Bashir has bagged 32 wickets and would make an impact in the subcontinent which makes him our top pick in the upcoming game.
PAK vs ENG : Match Prediction
England head into this series after back to back series wins against West Indies and Sri Lanka and would be hoping to carry on their run when they take on Pakistan this term. Even though England won the series against Sri Lanka, they lost the last match as Sri Lanka dominated the game and won the match with eight wickets to spare.
Unlike their opponents, Pakistan has struggled in red ball cricket this year as they head into this series after five straight losses, they lost the series against Australia and Bangladesh prior to this game. As per our calculations, England are favourites in the upcoming game.
- Pakistan’ chances of winning – 44%
- England’ chances of winning – 56%
England has dominated this fixture in the past, in the last series in Pakistan, England were the better side as they swept the series 3-0 which is probably why the bookmakers have sided with them in this game and we believe you should do the same as England would take the 1-0 lead in the upcoming game.