Australia are staring at their first Test series defeat since the Ashes loss in England last year and they are left with no option but to win the second and final Test against Pakistan to avoid that ignominy.
An Overview:
The last time Pakistan won a Test series against Australia was two decades ago.
At the time it was only the eighth in the history of Test cricket to be won by a margin of just one wicket.
Later on it would be remembered for all the wrong reasons with allegations of match-fixing rearing its head.
Since that series and up to the start of the current one, these two teams had clashed 20 times in the long form of the game, with Australia claiming 16 and losing just two.
The Dubai defeat was just their third in all those years.
The tour game against Pakistan A gave an expected insight to where Australia could be tested and it was no different from the chinks that were on display the last time they played in the sub-continent.
Australia were woeful in India in 2013, and even if one were to discount the off-field shenanigans associated with that tour, they had given an exhibition of how not to play spin bowling in that series.
It repeated in that tour game and while captain Michael Clarke brushed it away, Pakistan exposed those same frailties in the opening Test to go 1-0 up.
Now, with their backs to the wall, Australia need to come up with a performance that stalls their five-match losing streak against Asian teams away from home. Something far easier said than done.
The Track Tale:
Even without looking at it and without analysing its previous statistics, it’s not too difficult to predict the pitch at Abu Dhabi will resemble the one the two teams encountered in Dubai.
For all the talk of the curator Tony Hemmings wanting to provide a bouncy track for the first Test, it turned out to be a slow, ragged and later in the Test, a rank-turner that made the visitors terribly uncomfortable.
Why would Pakistan want anything different from this one?
A point to note though is that Pakistan do not need to win this Test, Australia do.
Hence, it will work well for Pakistan if they get a track that offers nothing to the bowlers, not even to the slow bowlers, so that the batsmen can camp on it through most of the Test match and not feel too threatened by any kind of movement.
The good news for Australia is that only recently has the ICC expressed their dissatisfaction with a pitch that resembled a national highway. It was a game between England and India earlier this year in Trent Bridge and only 29 wickets were lost for a total of 1344 runs with the bowlers struggling to hold fort.
Earlier, only pitches which were deemed to be too spin-friendly from the start or dangerous to the health of the batsmen were reprimanded, but this initiative by the ICC to also worry about the health of the bowlers is a welcome one. In context of this Test, it could force the curator to not prepare a hopelessly batting-friendly surface for the second Test.
The Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi has hosted five Tests previously, with only two of them seeing results – against England and South Africa. Sri Lanka have managed two draws on it while the only other match that ended in a stalemate was the first ever one played there against the Proteas.
Generally speaking, it is a high-scoring pitch, with 11 centuries having been scored over the five Tests. Four of these centuries were doubles.
The toss will be important but not as crucial as one can make it out to be, on the basis of the evidence of their tour of India. Australia batted first in all four Tests that series and still lost all of them.
Team News:
We will know more about the composition of the two sides as we get closer to the game as they look to study the pitch on the day of the game before deciding on the starting XI.
In recent times, Australia have announced their XI at least a day before the game but that trend was bucked in the lead-up to the first Test. As much as the reason for that can be attributed to them wanting to analyse the pitch on the first morning of the Test, it also pointed to a bit of confusion in their ranks.
Hence, it will be interesting to see whether Australia go back to their earlier tactic or wait till the toss on the first morning.
Pakistan will hope their line-up from the first Test is fit to take the field again. Mohammad Hafeez had injured his ankle in that game, while Zulfiqar Babar bowled even with his right hand in stitches.
If Hafeez does miss out, Taufeeq Umar could come into the line-up, but that will also mean that Pakistan will be a bowler short. Hafeez bowled 25.4 overs before suffering his injury and is a vital cog in the Pakistani bowling attack, having picked up more than 200 international wickets so far.
Australia does not have any fitness issues at the time of writing but there are numerous questions surrounding the composition of their side.
Do they drop Steve O’Keefe and Mitchell Marsh while bringing in Glenn Maxwell and a third quick bowler to partner Peter Siddle and Mitchell Johnson?
If so, who will that third seam bowler be out of Ben Hilfenhaus, James Faulkner and Mitchell Starc?
What about Alex Doolan and his poor form? Does Phil Hughes make for a better number three?
Or does it make more sense for Australia to retain the same XI and repose their faith in that set, an eventuality I find it hard to reconcile with.
MATCH DETAILS:
Venue: Abu Dhabi
Date: October 30-November 3, 2014
Start time: 5:00pm AEDT (10:00am local)
Join The Roar for live coverage of the second Test from Abu Dhabi from 5:00pm (AEDT) on Thursday afternoon.
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