Hope amidst pain only constant as Azhar Ali waits for turnaround

However, Azhar Ali’s batting is not the on-field expression of collective Pakistani consciousness. A normal Pakistani fantasy lies elsewhere - with the tape ball, on the maidans, with the swing, with the yorkers and sometimes, within the white-ball mannerisms. Ali is the antithesis who just happened amongst the most predictable set of Pakistani cricketing beliefs, when you know there are no more surprises to spring until they pull the hat out of nowhere and shake the core belief of everyone following them. 

All in all, he is there, like a Pujara, like a Cook, like a receding hairline waiting to expose your true age. You would never see him unless you want to see him. Trying to understand Azhar Ali is like trying to understand why the game is so fluid nowadays. It might be an unpopular opinion, but understanding Azhar Ali is also to understand why the health of Test cricket is at its prettiest form now more than ever. Will any objectivity work? We will try anyway.

Since his Test debut a decade ago, only Alastair Cook has played more balls than his 14,129. His average 96.12 ball per innings is the third-best after Steve Smith and Cheteshwar Pujara with the cap of minimum 100 innings and to go with that, he averages over 40 in Test cricket. These are some great numbers. But wait, be wowed by something even greater if you have the patience.

Taking that Karachi century against Sri Lanka away - for four Pakistani top-order batsmen scored centuries in that Test earlier this year - Ali hasn’t crossed the 40-run mark since the 134 he struck against New Zealand in 2018 - a series that Pakistan lost anyway. So it is basically a period of 16 Test innings and broadening the horizon, you see Ali scoring only two centuries in the last two years. Therein lies the catch and the fundamental problems of modern-day Pakistan cricket.

When Misbah-Ul-Haq and Younis Khan batted in tandem, Azhar Ali was not the best batsman in the side. But still, he averaged 46.86 until Mis-You retired, but since then that has dropped to a paltry 27.97. To put things in perspective, in the 19 Tests that followed, he is yet to reach the magic figure of 1000 Test runs. The fact that Pakistan needed him the most and groomed him accordingly to fill the gigantic shoes of Misbah has been the biggest frustration and if you take the leap that Babar Azam has taken to ensure the Younis Khan space is filled, there is hardly any argument that Azhar has in his favour. 

It would be blasphemous to suggest that Azhar, who once conjured up runs for fun, has any tangible amount of problems with his batting. The tactical and managerial nous in Azhar’s batting abilities is so good that even in goofy conditions, the team used to bank on him to give them runs. However, since it was pronounced in the last Australia tour where he had to sacrifice his forward press in order to tackle Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood’s movements, Ali seemed to be caught in two minds while playing any shots across the line. 

Even against Sri Lanka, in the typical sub-continent conditions, he had his stance open - more than Murali Vijay even - but he could manage to navigate through all that because the conditions didn’t test him enough. His muscle memory has been trained accordingly but once he got to a difficult batting condition, it became painfully obvious. He left his front-foot quite across and made himself a slave of the induckers. 

Today, in Manchester, after Shan Masood and Abid Ali casually navigated through the first hour of the play, Azhar Ali had a chance on the platter for him. Essentially the wicket was batting friendly and there is a solid Masood to give him company at the other end. But things didn’t turn out the way it should have and like a cacophony of failed instruments, the Pakistan skipper, who has quite a legacy to maintain, was dismissed for a duck. He went ahead and asked for a review, but that was perhaps the most helpless, clueless and dramatically hapless moment of the day. It was desperation that got the better of Ali the batsman.

This England series has come as a chance to redeem his own fledgeling career and it is for Ali to swim or sink from thereon. What he goes on to do from here would not only define his ability as a batsman, which everyone and their pet dog know he has in abundance, but also the legacy he would leave behind before Babar Azam takes over the leadership on a full-time basis. That is a hope he, like most of his supporters, would cling on to and wait for the sun to shine brighter once again.