Masood's captaincy could well be Pakistan's accidental masterstroke

They might have got there in their own colourful way, but perhaps serendipity has got Pakistan to the right place after all. Pakistan's appointment of Shan Masood as Test captain wasn't so much a carefully managed transition of an experienced player into a position of responsibility as it was throwing names at a wall and hoping one would stick.

But that kind of al fresco decision making at least meant the appointment wasn't the wrong way around, as most captaincy appointments are in cricket now. Many captains are often criticised for captaincy by autopilot, but the same charge could be levelled at the appointments themselves. Pakistan, for one, didn't appoint Babar Azam as skipper, not because there was a long and promising history of strategic nous, but because he was comfortably the side's best batter across formats, and didn't need to worry about his spot in the side for the foreseeable future. Shan wasn't appointed for the guarantee he had locked down a place in the team, but in spite of the fact that he never has.

There can be plenty of cynicism around every aspect of Masood's involvement in any aspect of Pakistan cricket, but perhaps only because that's the easiest thing to do. The PCB didn't manage Babar's departure from the captaincy with great decorum - not that anyone expected them to - but in naming his successor, the thinking was fairly simple: appoint a captain who can be a good captain. And sometimes, that kind of simplicity is the highest form of sophistication.

Masood wasn't reinventing the wheel with the approach he brought to the role, but the last thing you could accuse him of is sleepwalking through the role. He had barely landed in Perth before he began to speak of the approach Pakistan needed to adopt to take on Australia, and, despite his soft-spoken, non-confrontational demeanour, he has been demanding it of his team all series. When Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq adopted the antithesis of that approach to score 74 runs in 36.2 overs, Shan charged down the wicket off the second ball he faced, tonking Nathan Lyon over long-on for four. It felt as much a message to his own side as it did to Australia.

It is an approach that risks looking silly - as it has perhaps done with some of Masood's dismissals, but as he said on the eve of the third Test, there is a risk-reward calculation that supersedes specific optics. Two expansive drives off fast bowlers in Perth to get out looked technically deficient, and dancing down the track to Lyon only to hole out in Melbourne appeared irresponsible.

But across the two Tests, no other Pakistan player has two half-centuries, none of his team-mates have scored more runs and Mitchell Marsh aside, no player across both units can boast a higher strike rate. According to ESPNcricinfo's ball-tracking numbers, only Travis Head - who has faced around half as many balls as Masood - has managed to exceed the Pakistan captain's attacking shot percentage of 22.39% across the series. And his defensive shot percentage is significantly lower than everyone else's at 30.85%; for all of Head's belligerence, he defends over 37% of balls he faces.

It is something he has spoken of so frequently even if he was bashful about coming off as repetitive.

"I'll sound like a broken record but there are some things you have to do in Test cricket," he said. "The first thing is to take 20 wickets; we had that box ticked [in Melbourne]. The second is the scoring rate. If you score at the significantly lower rate than your opposition like happened in Perth, where there was a difference of two runs an over at least, then you'll be way behind in the game. We batted 100 overs and they batted 110. That's not much of a difference but the scoring rate set us back quite a bit. Our target is to hopefully bat at a quicker rate and obviously bat a decent amount of overs too."

His cynics will argue about how likely it is that Pakistan bat the same number of overs if they're scoring at higher run rates, and point to the irrefutable fact that he, like every Pakistan captain before him in 24 years, has overseen a series defeat in Australia. But being cynical about Masood is somewhat easier than winning Test matches in Australia. Few will disagree that Pakistan pushed Australia closer than most expected in Melbourne, and while that in itself may not guarantee this strategy's long-term effectiveness, there is a serious attempt at problem-solving not always evident with Pakistan.

It has also been evident in the way Pakistan's fielding positions keep twitching and tinkering. Short legs have come in and gone out depending on the batter and the tone Pakistan have looked to set in the field. Marnus Labuschagne was most notably done in by squeezing him down the legside moments after Masood went to have a word with Shaheen Shah Afridi; Pakistan put in a leg slip and Afridi sent one down legside that he nicked off to the keeper. Against Marsh, Pakistan tried to smother him by bringing short midwicket up and bowling straighter. In Perth, when Australia threatened to get away on the first day, Pakistan put fielders in catching positions behind the stumps and bowled short, getting three cheap wickets towards the end of the day.

Masood may not be the guy to read out the riot act in the dressing room, but ten years on and off with the national side, as well as many across the red-ball and franchise circuit, has exposed him to various ideas and multiple leaders.

"In 10 years, you play under a lot of captains and you learn a lot from different individuals," he said. "I've learned a lot from the captains I've played under, be them international, domestic, County or PSL. When you meet different characters, your horizons expand. But you need to bring your own individuality to the role as well."

The circumstances that he took over in meant this could have been one of those Pakistan tours where the dressing room becomes a toxic environment, and the fighting spirit disappears completely. But even with a severely depleted bowling line-up against what he called "the best Test side in the world", there is little doubt that Pakistan are scrapping for every possible advantage, even if they come up short.

Masood's Pakistan have made a point out of not hanging anyone to dry. There was a protective wall around Abdullah Shafique after a Test where his spilled chances likely cost Pakistan a win. On the eve of the second Test, when Pakistan announced Sarfaraz Ahmed had been dropped for Mohammad Rizwan and he was asked about it, Masood began his response with a lengthy riposte defending Sarfaraz's inclusion in the first place.

It's a philosophy he appears to have sworn by. "I believe as a captain, you need to stand up for your players, and for their wellbeing," he said. "Sometimes you need to leave cricketing performance to the side. You need to care for and understand your players. Off and on the field.

"Sometimes you have to take such decisions because you can only play 11 players and have 18 in a squad. If you don't understand your players well you can end up making mistakes. My first thought is not to do anyone injustice. There are ups and downs but you be there for people. It's easy to reward a good player or praise them, but how you look after someone who's not playing well or having a rough time is something that's at the forefront of my mind as a captain. It's impossible to be everyone's favourite; there will be people who won't be happy with you, but you do whatever you can for someone."

Masood will never have the mass support his predecessor Babar enjoys, or the lengthy, unencumbered run Misbah-ul-Haq got with his Test side. It is hard to say where Pakistan, and Masood, will be by the time Pakistan play their next Test series, which could potentially be another 10 months away.

But until then, he's doing with the armband what he's always done with bat in hand: fidgeting, tinkering and thinking, in pursuit of a solution he will eventually stumble upon. And if this doesn't work, he'll always have one more thing he can try. He always does.