Wisden
Tour review

Pakistan v Australia, 2014-15


Younis Khan scored his fifth double-hundred, Pakistan v Australia, 2nd Test, Abu Dhabi, 2nd day, October 31, 2014
Younis Khan scored his fifth double-hundred of his career to help Pakistan beat Australia in the second Test © Getty Images
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Twenty20 international (1): Pakistan 0, Australia 1
One-day internationals (3): Pakistan 0, Australia 3
Test matches (2): Pakistan 2, Australia 0

In the 1970s, Pakistan v Australia was a rivalry that meant something, built on an eclectic collection of fast bowlers, magnetic personalities and, usually, captains looking to win. It was the kind of rowdy, unbuttoned cricket that defined the era. The sides met regularly - and produced compelling fare.

By the time the Australians arrived for their third recent trip to the UAE, the lustre had long lost its shine. Their previous two visits had been restricted to limited-overs games, and the contest now felt like a random configuration of the calendar. Since the start of the millennium, Australia have been Pakistan's most reluctant visitors; the world stopped touring Pakistan in 2009, but Australia had not played there since 1998-99. Since then the only Test-playing sides Australia had met less often than Pakistan were Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

Part of the problem was competitiveness. Before this series, Australia had won 13 of the previous 14 Tests against Pakistan, and 39 of the previous 53 completed one-day internationals. For the first half of this tour, that trend continued: Australia cruised to a 50-overs whitewash, their modern-day hold never more apparent than in the last match, when Pakistan failed to score two runs to win from the final over.

Given that Pakistan were without a number of frontline bowlers, most notably Saeed Ajmal (banned) and Junaid Khan (injured), nothing suggested any change to that pattern in the Tests. To the seasoned observer of Pakistan cricket, this should have been a sign of what was to follow. Absolute contrariness has long been the Pakistan imprint, and so Misbah-ul-Haq organised the finest result of his captaincy.

Pakistan's first series win over Australia in 20 years was woven from many threads, but one of the brightest was what it said about their domestic cricket. For all the sustained excellence of their batsmen, it was a bowling attack composed of experienced worthies from the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy that delivered the triumph. The system might be creaky, but it was where Zulfiqar Babar, Yasir Shah, Rahat Ali and Imran Khan had learned their trade, so it couldn't be all bad; they began the series with eight Test caps between them, but over 250 first-class matches.

Younis Khan scored three successive hundreds, including 213 in the Second Test; Azhar Ali and Misbah both scored twin tons in that game, withMisbah's second matching the fastest in Test history. Mitchell Johnson summoned up the occasional burst of aggression, but no other Australian bowler paid fewer than 48 per wicket. Overall, each of their scalps cost 80, easily their worst average in any series.

The Australians seemed subdued, perhaps by the relative sterility of it all: there were no baying crowds, no antagonistic opponents; these were also their first Tests in seven months. Still, the series strikingly reaffirmed an old truth about the new Australia. For all the development during the Ashes, and the win in South Africa in 2013-14, in Asian conditions they had not moved on from their whitewash in India early in 2013. Perhaps they had even regressed.

Match reports for

Only T20I: Australia v Pakistan at Dubai (DICS), Oct 5, 2014
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1st ODI: Australia v Pakistan at Sharjah, Oct 7, 2014
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2nd ODI: Australia v Pakistan at Dubai (DICS), Oct 10, 2014
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3rd ODI: Australia v Pakistan at Abu Dhabi, Oct 12, 2014
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1st Test: Australia v Pakistan at Dubai (DICS), Oct 22-26, 2014
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2nd Test: Australia v Pakistan at Abu Dhabi, Oct 30-Nov 3, 2014
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1st Test: New Zealand v Pakistan at Abu Dhabi, Nov 9-13, 2014
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2nd Test: New Zealand v Pakistan at Dubai (DICS), Nov 17-21, 2014
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3rd Test: New Zealand v Pakistan at Sharjah, Nov 26-30, 2014
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1st T20I: New Zealand v Pakistan at Dubai (DICS), Dec 4, 2014
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2nd T20I: New Zealand v Pakistan at Dubai (DICS), Dec 5, 2014
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1st ODI: New Zealand v Pakistan at Dubai (DICS), Dec 8, 2014
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2nd ODI: New Zealand v Pakistan at Sharjah, Dec 12, 2014
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3rd ODI: New Zealand v Pakistan at Sharjah, Dec 14, 2014
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4th ODI: New Zealand v Pakistan at Abu Dhabi, Dec 17, 2014
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5th ODI: New Zealand v Pakistan at Abu Dhabi, Dec 19, 2014
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