Former England captain Michael Vaughan has called the visiting Pakistan side the ‘easiest batting lineup I’ve seen in a long time’. He said the home bowlers were ‘queuing up to bowl’ to the Pakistani batters because they knew they’d be rewarded with a lot of wickets with little effort.
England won the first Test by an innings and 103 runs after bowling Pakistan out for 171 and 135 in two innings. In the ongoing second Test, Babar Azam’s men were again bowled out for 110 in the first innings; England outscored them in both innings, with 290 and 208 on board, setting them a target of 389 runs.
“I’ll be brutally honest. The England bowlers aren’t being challenged at all. And this Pakistan batting lineup is possibly the easiest batting lineup I’ve
seen in a long time to bowl to. And not only that, I think as a bowler, I think they’re all queuing up to bowl because they know there are wickets out there,” Vaughan said on the BBC Test Match Special.
“You’re not going to get hurt. There’s no batter that’s going to hurt them. No one’s going to damage their figures, and it’s really, ‘roll up, roll up, who wants to get the wickets?’ I think they all know that Pakistan aren’t going to get big scores. So you’re only going to be out there for 40 to 50 overs, so you give everything in every spell, you keep going to Joe Root saying, Err, I’ll bowl another one.’ There are so many wickets out there,” said Vaughan.
He went as far as comparing the Test to ‘second division county cricket’.
“It’s so easy. They’re still doing a good job, and they’re still looking very threatening. And I think this bowling attack, the way they’re bowling, will challenge better batting lineups if they continue in this fashion. But this is Pakistan batting. Is it second division county cricket? There’s no way that they are batting in any standard to say that, that is a Test match batting lineup,” he added.
There have been several claims of the Pakistani team being one of the worst to ever visit England. It’ll need a monumental batting effort to change that perception.
