Pakistan fight the good fight as bluster gives way to pragmatism

"Where's the Bazball, mate?"

It was a familiar refrain in the Perth press centre as Abdullah Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq crawled their way through the second half of the day with all the urgency of a beach tourist on a Sunday morning. It took Pakistan 50 balls to go past the 14 runs that Australia had scored in the first over of the Test match. Imam-ul-Haq got off the mark with a couple off his fourth delivery, but it was another hour and a half before he scored his next run. David Warner had brought up his half-century off 41 balls on Day 1; Pakistan needed 26 overs to inch up to theirs. Spectators watching this, from a side that had promised to play an exciting brand of cricket to attract spectators to Test cricket, may have been justified in feeling they were shortchanged.

But it's election season in Pakistan, so there's naturally a big difference between the promises that are made and the ones that can be kept. Besides, no one in the Pakistan camp had mentioned Bazball in the lead-up to the Test. There was plenty of big talk from captain Shan Masood about the Pakistan Way on the day before, and while that has been shorthanded into a synonym for England's self-professed style of play, Pakistan's own "exciting brand of cricket", as Masood called it, remains very much in its embryonic stage. At this point, its entire lifespan constitutes two Test matches in Galle and Colombo. And while a fortnight in Sri Lanka might sound like a good time, it's probably best not to treat it like a petri dish for a cricketing philosophy.

What Pakistan are doing here is rather more important than providing quick and easy dopamine hits. Masood might have emphasised the value of playing attractive cricket that helps Pakistan secure more Tests against opposition like Australia, but brief cameos and heavy defeats are unlikely to aid that cause. Against Australia's near-flawless four-pronged attack on a surface much spicier than Australia's first innings score and Pakistan's insipid bowling suggested, Shafique and Imam understood they were better off playing the ball in front of them than the press conference that that happened 48 hours ago.

The 17,666 that showed up at the Optus Stadium - a larger crowd than Day 1 - began to get restless as Shafique and Imam ground away. They created their own entertainment, tossing beach balls around, occasionally cheering if one made it onto the playing surface. The applause was especially loud when Mitchell Marsh, Australia's star on Friday and the only West Australian in the current eleven, got anywhere near the ball.

"It's a pretty standard West Australian wicket," Marsh, whose swashbuckling 90 was the closest this crowd came to watching the Pakistan Way, said. "You bowl in the right area, you'll get the nicks, but if you miss your lines you can smack it around."

Australia's bowlers didn't miss their lines. They were quicker, more accurate, and found more movement than Pakistan's fast bowlers, and produced enough quality to have broken through on a luckier day. But at the same time, Pakistan's openers refused to give them a quarter. Ravi Shastri, working on the game, declared himself especially impressed by Shafique in particular. Pakistan don't need anyone telling them how special Shafique has the potential to be, but a badge of approval from someone who knows a thing or two about successful recent tours of Australia doesn't hurt.

Another person who recognises good bowling knows why the openers played as they did. "The three Australian quicks are extremely experienced, as is Nathan Lyon," Pakistan fast bowling coach Umar Gul said. "They know how to play Test cricket and how to bowl. The conditions were tough and we have to credit the Australian bowlers, they bowled with great consistency and discipline. If they'd had a bit more luck we might have lost one or two more wickets. We have to trust the people in the middle to assess the situation and bat accordingly. Every side has a way to tackle the opposition, and the way we batted today produced a good enough result."

Pakistan might have campaigned from the radical progressive wing of the party during the build-up campaign, but in government under Masood, they've switched to the pragmatic centre. The openers were sent out to do a job, see off Australia's most prolific fast bowling triumvirate, and few could argue they didn't succeed on that front. Since ESPNcricinfo's ball-by-ball records began, only once has a Pakistan opening partnership in Australia survived for longer than the 218 balls Shafique and Imam stared down. It's by no means the biggest opening partnership, in terms of runs, that Pakistan have ever put on here, but they recognised a simple fact: there was no way to win the Test this evening, but plenty of ways to lose it.

But the captain promised excitement, and team director Mohammad Hafeez guaranteed Pakistan would take Nathan Lyon on. The leadership group was happy to stick to its promise. The second ball Shan faced, he danced down the track and heaved Lyon over mid-on for four. It's worth remembering that Masood's personal belligerence pre-dates Pakistan's attempt to rebrand themselves, so it was little surprise he was sticking to a method that somehow culminated in his being handed the national captaincy.

It didn't come without risks, but even Australia were pushed into the odd defensive change, with Pat Cummins sending mid-off to the boundary when Lyon bowled to Masood, offering up the option of an easy single Masood regularly availed. Even Imam began to be roused from his scoring slumber, carving a boundary off Lyon and coming down the track suggestively to the ones flighted up. He clobbered one into his captains back (insert your own joke about not turning your back to a teammate as Pakistan captain) and hammered Mitchell Starc past backward point when he missed his line.

Pakistan bowled Australia out in a little over a session on day two and lost one wicket in the best part of 50 overs, a better day than Pakistan enjoyed on all of their previous tour. But before the day was out, Masood's wicket came, as it often tends to after an all-too-short period of excitement. He averages a shade over 28 in a decade of international cricket, and he'd reached 30; the glass ceiling he can seemingly never breach continues to tie him down no matter what else changes. An expansive drive, a faint edge, a heartbeat on UltraEdge, and Pakistan's new captain was taken out of the contest.

But thanks to the way Pakistan batted, that could not yet be said of the team. It wouldn't be Pakistan if there wasn't some goalpost-shifting around what the Pakistan Way truly means, but for a team that has only known hurt and heartbreak in Australia, being competitive two days into a Perth Test is excitement enough on its own. For when, after all, did the radical progressives ever get a chance to remain in power in Pakistan?