The Multan Cricket Stadium, in Multan, Pakistan is said to be a graveyard for bowlers while simultaneously being a batsman's paradise. Wickets are hard to come by while tons of runs are scored. It continued in the recently concluded 1st Test between Pakistan and England; where the visitors won by an innings and 47 runs. It's this trend that has created a lot of scrutiny about the ground.
The term "bowler’s graveyard" refers to pitches that offer no help to bowlers, effectively turning them into spectators in a batsmen-dominated game.
Australia pace legend, Dennis Lillee, denounced a pitch in Pakistan as a, "graveyard for bowlers" in 1980. More than 40 years later, little has changed. Lillee vented his anger after toiling for 21 wicketless overs in Faisalabad in a turgid draw.
All 11 Australian players, even wicketkeeper Rod Marsh, had a turn bowling in Pakistan’s second innings of 382-2 in reply to Australia’s 617 all out as the game petered out into near farce.
Last week, on a wicket described as, "a road" by former captain, Michael Vaughan, England rewrote the record books as they piled up 823-7 declared in reply to Pakistan’s 556 in the first Test.
The total was the fourth highest single innings in Test history. Harry Brook plundered 317 at almost a run a ball and Joe Root became England’s highest Test run scorer during his career-best 262. Their stand of 454 for the fourth wicket was an England record, the fourth highest in history and the most by any pair playing overseas.
Despite the lifeless pitch, England’s bowlers pulled off an innings and 47 run victory after Pakistan crumbled to 220 all out in their second innings. It gave Pakistan an unwanted record — the first team to score 500 or more and lose a Test by an innings.
England batting great, Kevin Pietersen, said on X, "Still a bowlers graveyard! If this wicket doesn’t crumble and produce a result, it’s helping DESTROY Test cricket."
It's a, "perennial problem," former Pakistan captain, Wasim Akram, told AFP. "For years, it has been the same old story. Very rarely we used to get green and lively pitches in the 1990's and had to bowl long spell for wickets."
Rashid Latif, a former Pakistan captain, who has studied pitch preparation, said there was no need for the pitches to be curated so overwhelmingly in the batsmen’s favour. "We can prepare good pitches but our mindset is negative," Latif told AFP. "There was good grass on the Multan pitch but it was shaved off, I don’t know on whose wishes."
Former spinner and ex-selector, Tauseef Ahmed, a member of Pakistan team who played in the infamous 1980 Faisalabad Test, said, "Our batters want a flat pitch to score runs. Even in domestic matches, we have such pitches so that players score big and get prominence."
The last two years has seen Pakistani pitches get even more docile. Each Test wicket there now costs an average of 42.13 runs, the highest anywhere in the world. Pitch preparation is a science, with experts saying the ideal soil mix is around 60% clay with less sand, such as that found in Australia.
It produces firm and bouncy tracks which begin to take more spin over five days, providing a balance between ball and bat. One local groundsman said pitches were a big problem in Pakistan. "There are multiple factors from weather to interference from the team management who want it to suit them," said the curator, who didn't want to be named.
He said, "That makes the process complex. A good pitch needs sun to bake it but in some weather we do not get that. A Test pitch needed to be cared for six months or a year but our pitches are over-used so they become flat."
Two years ago, Pakistan and Australia scored 1 187 runs with just 14 wickets taken in a soporific draw in Rawalpindi.
The then Pakistan cricket chief, Ramiz Raja, blasted the playing surface: "We live in the dark ages of pitches in Pakistan. This is not a good advert for Test cricket."
Latif said serious work was needed to lift the standard of pitches. "There should be a research department under a good geologist to ascertain how a good pitch can be prepared."
He also wanted to see Australian Kookaburra balls used in Pakistan in exchange for ditching for those with a more prominent seam to help bowlers. "We need to have Grays, Duke or SG balls for our type of clay, which are hand-stitched."
According to ESPNCricinfo, since December 2019, when Test cricket returned to Pakistan, bowlers have averaged nearly 40 runs per wicket there. This is comfortably the poorest in the world and five runs more than Sri Lanka, the second-poorest where bowlers have averaged 34.25.
However, things have taken a turn for the worse for bowlers since Pakistan's home series against Australia in early 2022. Wickets have come at 42.13 runs apiece since then. Again, the worst that bowlers have averaged in any country, however, the gap between them and Sri Lanka has increased. While Pakistan has added two runs to the bowlers' average; Sri Lanka has moved fractionally from 34.25 to 34.76.
It emerged that, in that series against Australia, Pakistan had wanted to prepare pitches that offered little to no help for the Australia fast bowlers. The juggernaut hasn't come to a stop yet.
Since March 2022, Pakistan has hosted 14 totals of 400 or more in just 42 Test innings - the highest in any country in this period. The second most - 12 - have come in England but that's over 76 innings. While in England, one 400-plus total has come every 6.3 innings; in Pakistan, it's happened once every 3 innings.
In the same period, teams have scored 500-plus runs seven times in Pakistan - also the most in any country. Out of the five 600-plus totals since March 2022, three have come in Pakistan. Sri Lanka is the only other country where teams have scored in excess of 600 runs.
Post the run carnage in this Test, Multan has become the third venue in Pakistan - along with Rawalpindi and Karachi - where bowlers have an average north of 40. There are 28 venues around the world that have hosted two or more Tests since March 2022 and, apart from the three in Pakistan, Trent Bridge in England is the only one where bowlers average 40+.
In the Multan Test, nine bowlers had to bowl more than 20 overs in the first innings. That's overtime, considering Tests have been largely finishing within four days of late. Since March 2022, on an average, there have been 8.5 bowlers bowling 20 or more overs per Test in Pakistan. This is 1.6 per Test more than in New Zealand where this average is the second-highest.
Moreover, in Pakistan, bowlers often bowl 20 or more overs for meagre returns too. Since March 2022, the global mean for the bowling average in innings of 20 or more overs is 36.17. In Pakistan, 64 out of the 94 such bowling innings have an average worse than 36 runs per wicket. That's a whopping two in every three spells. Australia is the second-worst on this measure where 57.41% of these long spells average worse than the global average. However, spells of 20 or more overs happen less frequently in Australia than they do in Pakistan.
Bowlers don't get respite even as matches wear on. Pakistan's top-order collapse on the fourth day in Multan was more an aberration than a norm in Tests in the country. Bowlers have averaged 40.65 on fourth days in Tests in Pakistan since March 2022 (39.48 before this Test). This average is higher than on any given day of play in the other countries barring the first day in Sri Lanka where bowlers have averaged 42.02 since March 2022.
Also, it's not like spinners or pacers have it better, though spinners have done worse: they average 44.75 per wicket in Pakistan - the worst by over four runs than in Australia, the next-poorest hosts for tweakers since 2022. In terms of strike rate, spinners do worse only in the UAE, which has hosted a solitary Test in this period, than in Pakistan. In comparison, pacers have managed to average just under 40. Only Zimbabwe, which has hosted just two Tests, has had it worse. By strike rate too, only Zimbabwe has fared worse for fast bowlers than Pakistan.
Pakistan's last win in a home Test came against South Africa in Rawalpindi more than three years ago when bowlers averaged 27.83 in the match. The same venue, a year later, in the first Test of the Australia tour, produced just 13 wickets across five days at nearly 89 runs apiece. Pakistan haven't won at home in 11 Tests since that match. They should have ended up with a few more than just the four draws out of the 11. England's incredible innings win in Multan shows that Test cricket has moved on. Teams are playing for results. Perhaps Pakistan's pitches should move with the times.
When it comes to Tuesday, England have been thrown a curve-ball ahead of their second Test in Pakistan, with the hosts ready to re-use the same pitch in Multan rather than a fresh surface.
It's rare for Tests to be played back-to-back at the same venue and unheard of for the same pitch to be used twice in succession but, after losing the series opener by an innings and 47 runs, it appears the hosts have sought a left-field solution.
The first indication of the unexpected move came when both teams arrived for training on Sunday morning, with large industrial fans placed at either end of the original pitch to speed the drying process.
It was hard to tell what Pakistan’s recently-installed head coach, Jason Gillespie, made of developments, with the Australian studying conditions for over half an hour and enjoying several animated conversations.
It's not yet impossible, then, that there could be a late change of heart. While there was minimal deterioration in the first Test, there were visible cracks opening up and the occasional sign of variable bounce.
To me, pitches should be equal. What I mean by this is that pitches should suit both batters and bowlers. The various curator can alter it in the various hosts favour but favouring a single playing style isn't fair. Cricket, after all, is a gentlemen's game.