England in Pakistan: Andy Zaltzman on the statistics behind hosts’ remarkable comeback series win
Never before had a pair of bowlers taken 39 wickets in a two-Test sequence, as the series-discombobulating pair of Noman Ali and Sajid Khan achieved this month.
In 1956, England’s Jim Laker and Tony Lock took 38 in the third and fourth Tests against Australia – Laker took 11 and Lock seven at Leeds, followed famously by Laker’s mind-bending 19 at Old Trafford, with Lock hoovering up the other one.
CricViz’s ball-tracking data illustrates how the Pakistan pair skilfully adapted their approach. Noman bowled notably slower than his average speed recording in his previous appearances, and Sajid bowled a little quicker on average than he had in his Test career before this series, and with a significantly higher percentage of quicker balls.
To give further statistical evidence of the rare nature of their success, it is worth looking at bowlers who have taken six or more wickets in an innings in consecutive Tests against England since 1985.
Prior to Sajid and Noman, the last to do so was Mehedi Hasan Miraz, for Bangladesh, when he baffled England in his debut series with 19 wickets in two Tests.
Mehedi has since constructed a fine, if not world-beating, career, but the nine bowlers on the list before him contain some of the greatest in the history of the sport – Rangana Herath, the infinitely cunning Sri Lankan left-arm spinner who took more than 400 Test wickets; then the four leading non-English wicket-takers in Test history: Muttiah Muralitharan, Anil Kumble, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne.
Before them, three of the best pace bowlers ever seen – Malcolm Marshall, Imran Khan and Richard Hadlee – plus Pakistan’s Abdul Qadir, the best leg-spinner of the 30 years before Warne and Kumble.
These icons of cricket have now been joined by Sajid, an off-spinner who had had one good Test match out of his eight previous appearances and had played once for Pakistan in the previous two-and-a-half years.
And Noman, a left-armer who, before running through Sri Lanka in his most recent Test in 2023, had managed only 21 wickets at 53.6 in the nine Tests he had played since November 2021.
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