Most baffling and disheartening moment in Pak cricket history

KARACHI: In a game that defied logic, Pakistan crumbled to a historic defeat against England in the Multan Test. This will undoubtedly go down as one of the most baffling and disheartening moments in the nation’s cricketing history. The match, which Pakistan lost by an innings and 47 runs despite posting 556 in their first innings, has set an extraordinarily unwanted and embarrassing precedent: never before has a team lost by an innings after scoring over 500 runs in their innings.

This alone would make the match a standout in cricketing annals, but for Pakistan, it is just the latest in a string of unraveling that expose the team’s deepening vulnerabilities. There was something almost surreal about the manner in which Pakistan succumbed. Historically, scoring 500-plus in a Test match has all but guaranteed a team would at least be in the game, if not dominate proceedings.

In Test cricket’s long history, this was only the 19th time a team has scored 500 or more runs in an innings and still lost, and Pakistan, remarkably, has now managed this feat five times—more than any other nation. It is a moment that speaks not just to a particular failure in Multan, but to a broader, systemic weakness.

Two of those previous losses were all too familiar. Pakistan’s defeat at Leeds in 2006 after posting 538 is etched in painful memory, as is their shocking capitulation in Rawalpindi last year, where, having put up 579, they still contrived to lose to England.

Then there’s the Oval Test of 2006, which Pakistan forfeited. Also making to this list of Pakistan’s defeat from a commanding position is 92 runs loss to Australia in 1972 which Pakistan suffered after declaring their first innings at 574/8 in Melbourne.

But this latest collapse was particularly galling. The records tumbled in an almost farcical fashion. England, under Brendon McCullum, have become accustomed to winning from positions where results seem unlikely, but even by their own aggressive standards, this was something special. Conceding 556 runs, yet bulldozing Pakistan by an innings margin, speaks to the ruthlessness with which they have transformed under the new regime. For Pakistan, it speaks to a team that seems to have lost the ability to win - or even to compete – even when the odds are in their favor.

Pakistan’s 556 all-out is now the joint-fifth highest total in Test history to end up in defeat. Adding to the humiliation, two of the top four totals in that list also belong to Pakistan – 579 vs England in Rawalpindi two years ago and 574/8 against Australia in 1972 are reminder of Pakistan’s trend of collapsing in the game after being in commanding position.

Their bowling unit, once feared for its fire and passion, has become toothless when it matters most. England’s reply—803, the highest total ever conceded by Pakistan in Test cricket—was not just a defeat, but a rout of embarrassing proportions.