Multan cricket pitch: What should England and Pakistan expect in second Test?

The placid nature of the Multan surface made batting look easy at times in the first Test – well, if you came from Yorkshire that is!

Harry Brook, who became England’s first triple centurion for 34 years, shared a partnership of 454 with Joe Root, beating the previous best of 411 made by Colin Cowdrey and Peter May 57 years ago.

It came as England posted 823-7 declared – the fourth-highest total in Test history – in response to Pakistan’s 556, before bowling the hosts out for 220 on the final day.

Former England captain Michael Atherton pulled no punches with his assessment of the pitch used for the match.

“It’s a shocking Test-match pitch,” Atherton said on Sky Sports.

“If you don’t have that balance between bat and ball, you’re going to get a lot of poor cricket. So not a good pitch despite the fact there was a result.”

Ex-England skipper Nasser Hussain said the surface was typical of pitches in Pakistan and that the end result “does not justify everything that went before it”.

So exactly how much of a bowlers’ graveyard was the pitch for the first Test?

Well, since Test cricket returned to Pakistan in 2019 there have been 16 Tests where ball-tracking has been available to Cricviz.

Of those 16 Tests, this Multan pitch produced the second-lowest amount of average swing (0.63 degrees) but was the third-highest when it came to seam (0.53°).

It is perhaps the spinners who toiled the most – certainly Pakistan’s – with the amount of drift being the lowest of all 16 Tests (1.16°) and it was the fourth-lowest amount of turn (2.86°) seen in that time.

When England were victorious in Multan on their last tour of Pakistan in 2022, the highest score in the match was made by the hosts in the fourth innings – 328 – as England wrapped up a 26-run win.