First-Test blues, and chasing small targets

Pakistan's come-from-behind win in the first Test at Multan against England broke a rather distressing trend for them in the opening match of a series: they had lost four of the last five opening exchanges, and the one occasion when they avoided that fate was also thanks to an outstanding rearguard action by Kamran Akmal and Abdul Razzaq against India at Mohali.

In the last three years (since October 2002), Pakistan's first-Test record is worse than all the top eight teams except West Indies, who have lost seven times in 13 games. Australia are at the other end of the spectrum with zero defeats in 15 matches, while all teams apart from West Indies and Pakistan have won at least as many first Tests as they have lost.

The table shows that Pakistan have managed four wins in the series opener, but two of those came against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, opponents they'd back to beat anywhere, anytime. Before Multan, their only other significant victory in the first Test over the last three years came against South Africa at Lahore in 2003-04, a game, much like the one in Multan, in which Danish Kaneria and Shoaib Akhtar destroyed the opposition second innings, taking nine wickets between them. And while two of those six defeats have come against Australia, some of the others have been inflicted by much lesser teams, including Sri Lanka, India and West Indies.

Chasing small targets
England's defeat at Multan was unexpected not only because of their golden run and Pakistan's tendency to start a series sluggishly; it's become increasingly unusual for teams to fluff up a modest fourth-innings target. Ten years back, teams would give themselves a fair chance of defending a sub-200 fourth-innings total. Perhaps it is because pitches today are more batsman-oriented, or maybe the pace at which Test matches progress these days ensures that many games don't even last five days, thereby reducing the chance for a wearing wicket to play its part. Whatever the reasons, low targets don't cause the jitters like they once used to.

Since 2000, only three times have teams failed to get to a target between 100 and 200 in the last innings. One of those was in extremely dubious circumstances, when Australia, chasing 107, were done in by India's spinners and a treacherous pitch, not necessarily in that order. Apart from the Multan match, the only other occasion it happened in the last five years was at Kandy in 2000, when South Africa pulled the rug from under Sri Lanka's feet - requiring 177 to win, the home team appeared to be in safe territory at 161 for 6 before they lost four wickets for eight to tumble to a seven-run defeat. There was one other instance of a team failing to get to a sub-100 target - Zimbabwe, chasing 98 for victory at Port-of-Spain, they floundered to a miserable 63 all out.

In the 1990s, teams had fallen short in their quest for fourth-innings targets in the 100-200 range ten times in 39 tries - that's a shade over 25% of the time. Australia alone contributed to the list four times in that decade. In the 2000s, they have managed to hold their nerve much better, winning ten out of 11 times.

A part of the success of the teams in this decade is explained by the presence of Zimbabwe and Bangladesh - eight of those 36 wins have been achieved against them. However, exclude those games, and the result is still an impressive 28 wins, three defeats, and three draws from 34 Tests - a loss percentage of less than ten, well below the 1990s figure of 25%.

Australia's deadly duo
The Glenn McGrath-Shane Warne duo have been doing outstanding work for Australia for many years now, but in the West Indies second innings at the Gabba, something strange happened - for the first time in 155 innings when they played together in opposition all-outs, both bowlers went wicketless. It was also only the fourth time that the two bowlers had a combined haul of less than three wickets in an innings: the other three instances were against India at Melbourne in 1999-2000, and against England at Sydney in 1998-99 and at The Oval in 1997. That's an indication of just how much of a loss it will be for Australia - and relief for all opposition batsmen - when the two finally decide to wind up their career.