Pakistan's cycle of horrors in Australia

More bounce, more pace, a little bit of nip, some swing, plenty of spin, lots of edges, not many runs and pristine catches behind the wickets: the Pakistani batting experience in Australia pretty much writes itself.

A score of 8 for 97 does not just happen. It is as much an unavoidable response to history and the inevitable continuation of it, as it is to geography. No country in the world has so exposed Pakistan's batting as Australia; no country provides conditions as diametrically opposed to those a Pakistani batsman finds in his own country. South Africa may well come to occupy that space but the sample size, dramatic as it is, is still limited.

Pakistan's finest and Pakistan's worst have stood united over the years in their inability to change what happened in Brisbane this evening, reaffirming Australia as the big, vast shop of batting horrors in Pakistan's world.

106 all out, Sydney, January 1973
Before he left for the Australian tour of 1972-73, Mushtaq Mohammad's elder brother Hanif told him it was the best country in which to play cricket. Given Hanif scored 104 and 93 in the only Test he played there, Mushtaq may have forgiven him for the dummy he was sold.

It was on this tour that Pakistan's enduring experiences of Australia were formalised. They were whitewashed for a start, in which the last two Test defeats were especially traumatic. Sydney, where they were chasing 159 for a consolation win, was a true horror show.

A naturally attacking batting order was paralysed, to the extent that even a crocked Dennis Lillee, hampered by a bad back, was allowed to bully them. Having scored at over three an over in the first innings, they poked and edged their way towards the target at less than two runs an over.

That was all Max Walker needed, swinging his way through the order, hastening a collapse that began at 83-3 (he took 5 for 3 in 30 deliveries at one stage). "We invited pressure on ourselves by playing too cautiously," Mushtaq wrote years later in his autobiography. And so a template was set.

62 all out, Perth, November 1981
Javed Miandad's first away tour as captain was no gift and it came at the end of a period in which the Australian-Pakistan rivalry was at its most compelling, and abundant - this was the fifth of six series in a decade from 1972-73.

Pakistan had scored runs in the warm-up games but the Tests began badly, as it generally does for them in Australia. Miandad admitted later that the sight of a hard, fast, and green WACA pitch gave him and his team reason to pause.

They began well, putting Australia in and dismissing them for 180. Then they came out to bat and, well, the thing that people forget about the 62 all out is that it actually represented a bit of a recovery. Pakistan were 8 for 26 at one stage, before Sarfraz Nawaz came out and bashed 26 on his own to drag them away from the ignominy of equaling the lowest Test total. Dennis Lillee and Terry Alderman did the damage, in predictable manner, flirting with those outside edges - Rod Marsh took five catches behind the stumps.

Lucky for Pakistan, Miandad and Lillee then did this and now, people don't really remember that Test for the batting.

107 all out, Melbourne, January 1990
Another first Test, another ruthless expose of a batting line-up. In the run-up to this series, Pakistan could easily lay claim to being one of the best Test sides in the world. They had not lost a Test series in five years and had drawn two series with the best side in the world. Australia were yet to really become the great side they would later in the decade, even though they had an Ashes thumping behind them.

In Shoaib Mohammad and Javed Miandad they had two batsmen with averages of 50.48 and 61.79 respectively in that period. Imran Khan was averaging nearly 46, Ijaz Ahmed was shaping up into a feisty young batsman and Wasim Akram's batting was emerging. With a batting line-up this secure, it was one of Pakistan's best chances of getting a result in Australia.

None of it mattered as they got rolled over by Terry Alderman, Carl Rackemann and Merv Hughes although, as ever, they took their sweet time about it, batting one delivery less than 66 overs. Seven of the wickets fell to catches behind the stumps.

97 all out, Brisbane, November 1995
"Our batsmen get undone by the height of the ball - at least ten inches higher - and our bowlers get too excited and bang it in short." This is not a prediction of an assessment Misbah-ul-Haq may make after this Test, but the words of Wasim Akram about the 1995-96 tour, the last time Pakistan won a Test in Australia.

Pakistan had enough on their plate at the time to be distracted. Allegations about corruption were flying around all over the place. Salim Malik, the main but not sole accused, had been exonerated by a domestic inquiry but was in the squad and the subject of much scrutiny in Australia.

This time, however, it wasn't pace that undid them. England might like to think that Shane Warne tormented them more than any other, but his record against Pakistan puts the one against England in the shade. Though he had taken wickets on the tour of Pakistan a year earlier, this was the true beginning of his tyranny - Pakistan were 40-2 before his flight, dip, turn, bounce and showmanship did its thing.

72 all out, Perth, December 2004
This Test wasn't lost in Pakistan's second-innings crumbling. By then they were "chasing" 564 for the win. It was actually yanked away on the first day when, having reduced Australia to 5 for 78, they allowed them to recover to 8 for 357.

But that second-innings collapse was something, and if ever a case study was needed to examine and explain the failure of Pakistani batting in Australia, this would be a prime exhibit: Pacy surface, an accurate, back-of-a-length paceman who gets more bounce than usual and fairly hunts down edges operating on it, a succession of nervy wafts away from the body, outside off stump providing everyone in a cordon, from wicketkeeper to gully, catching practice.

Glenn McGrath was the aforesaid pacemen, ending with a career-best 8-24 as Pakistan lost their last nine wickets for 38 runs in 21 overs. Bob Woolmer, their coach at the time, didn't mince words, calling the batting disgraceful.

139 all out , Sydney, January 2010
And to Sydney, the clearest-cut example of how, just by the simple act of being in Australia, the minds of Pakistani batsmen become scrambled.

There was little in the surface by the time Pakistan began their chase of 176 on the fourth day of the Test. So little that Peter Siddle batted nearly three-and-a-half hours across the third and fourth days without undue alarm. Australia have had some fine pace attacks in their time, but it is safe to say Doug Bollinger, Siddle and a yet-to-be-revitalised Mitchell Johnson will struggle to get on that list. Ditto spinners and Nathan Hauritz.

It looked good for 11 overs, by which time they were 50 and just one down. Then, as the target neared, they short-circuited, slogging, heaving and poking their way to their most infamous modern-day collapse (which is, in itself, a difficult list to get onto). In the process they gifted Hauritz the five easiest wickets he would have picked up in his career.