No cure in sight for Pakistan's chronic troubles in Australia

"If it's black, fight back. If it's brown, lie down," the camping manual goes.

It is useful, possibly life-saving advice for anyone who, for some reason, willingly opts to pitch up a tent in the American Rockies with black or brown bears around. In Pakistan, The Islamabad Wildlife Management Fund's advice to hikers in the forest encircling the capital is similarly stoic. "In case you come face to face with a leopard, running is not an option," it cheerfully reveals. "Instead, one should freeze and show no signs of fear." Sure enough, all of this is much easier said than done, but at least there are instructions.

But while these intrepid adventurers are asked to go to battle with a black bear or play dead as a grizzly approaches them in the hope it doesn't turn the advice into a self-fulling prophecy, it stops short of reading out your options if you find yourself in the Arctic tundra and happen to encounter a polar bear. And you may draw your own conclusions as to why that is.

This Pakistan cricket team might be close to the Antipodes of the Arctic, but as for guidebooks concerning what to do when they show up here, Pakistan are in similarly virgin territory. Pakistan have come here with talismanic captains and generational talents, GOAT allrounders and star-studded sides, and have four wins in 38 Tests to show for it - never two in the same series.

So perhaps it is time to lean into the populist wave sweeping across much of the world and say it like it is: there is probably no way to beat Australia in Australia, certainly not for this Pakistani side. You want some other captain, and yet you also don't want your best batter to be exposed to the onerous requirements the captain's band places on a South Asian arm. You want someone of Imam-ul-Haq's limitations to go after Australia's most successful fast bowling trio in history, and also not to get out playing a silly shot off Nathan Lyon. You want Pakistan to get their runs quickly, and also to bat as long as Australia. You think you've seen enough not to care anymore, and yet you've set that pre-dawn alarm, cocooned in your blanket as you fumble for the TV remote in the biting cold.

The superhuman obscenity that is this Australian bowling attack put paid to the pretence that this is a contest between anything resembling equal opponents. Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood took turns working Pakistan over for a session and a half, the average speeds higher than any of Pakistan's ostensibly all-seam attack had achieved. Hazlewood and Cummins landed balls on the same spot so frequently they might have been eroding a little section of the pitch around good length outside off. Across the innings, the pair hit that spot a combined 170 times, conceding just 37 runs for it. Starc found conventional swing as late as the 76th over to send Sarfaraz Ahmed's stumps cartwheeling, the same way he ensnared Sarfaraz seven years ago, the last time his selection was remotely justifiable on these wickets.

In the flattest conditions of the Test match, with Babar Azam and Imam inching up to a 50-run stand, even Mitchell Marsh's military medium found seam movement, deviating enough to take Babar's outside edge and give Australia the morning's most important breakthrough. It is only by comparison, remember, that Marsh counts as something of a relief bowler to the main four; Pakistan are so fond of that breed of cricketer they're buzzing about in the starting XI like fruit flies in Western Australia.

Perhaps the ferocity of the criticism coming from Pakistan is an attempt to mask the futility of it all, because even if you could war-game a near-perfect Test match for this side, it's hard to see it culminating in a Pakistan win. Pakistan had a phenomenally good day in some ways, really. Facing what their batting coach Adam Hollioake called "one of the best bowling attacks in recent history", a vulnerable batting line-up held out for more than 102 overs, merely 69 fewer balls than Australia, who in turn were facing one of the more feeble attacks Pakistan have fielded in their own history.

It's disingenuous to suggest it means Pakistan missed a trick by not going harder and getting as close to Australia's first-innings total as possible, because the idea that approach would have seen them stay alive for so long is fanciful. It's perhaps not a coincidence that the two batters most committed to the attacking way - Shan Masood and Saud Shakeel - each lasted exactly 43 balls, fewer than any other specialist batter. Scores of 30 and 28 suggest an attack of the quality of this Australian quartet is inured to low-percentage aggression.

Even Hollioake, fronting up for the press conference, was willing to do little more than talk up the opposition's bowling attack. "There's a number of reasons [we didn't attack as we had planned]," he said. "Getting used to the pace and the bounce of this wicket was quite hard. And then obviously, their bowling attack's arguably one of the best bowling attacks in recent history. They bowled well and put the ball in good areas. I thought the openers did really well to see off the new ball. We're still getting used to the Australian pitches. Coming forward, we'll try to put a bit more pressure on them once we've seen the new ball. We probably could have put a bit more pressure on their attack. It's easy to say that sitting here, different when you're facing those great bowlers."

There are plenty of analysts talking up plenty of tactics, some of whom swear theirs will result in a Pakistani win over Australia in this country. But for now, in the absence of precedence, it is difficult to treat them as more than quacks peddling pseudoscience. Perhaps, one day, the cure will be found, but until then, all that exists is different ways to manage the symptoms.

Come to think about it, that camping manual does weigh in on the possibility of a polar bear encounter, and how to prepare oneself for it: "If it's white, good night."