Big picture: Back on the road again

Ask a friend, any friend, where do you think England will be playing a Test match this week? Who, bar the most devoted of cricket fans, could hope to keep up with an absurd itinerary that, only last week(!), was pitting England against Australia in a dank one-day series at the fag end of a deeply underwhelming summer?

And now, without even a pause to put the clocks back, they are back on their winter travels again… to Pakistan, a place where England hadn't set foot for nearly two decades from 2005, but will soon have played six Tests in the space of two years, which is more away matches than even Australia and India have warranted in a similar timeframe.

It's all deeply discombobulating - and that's before we get drawn into the full weeds of this winter, with a white-ball tour of the West Indies already just three weeks away, and another Test series in New Zealand looming next month. It's little wonder that James Anderson has decided to grab his golfing holidays while he can, or that Andrew Flintoff has decided that a role in rebooting cult '80s gameshows might be a prudent side hustle. The international schedule is already anarchy. Where's the harm in a bit more dysfunction?

Talking of such things… England's hosts are past masters of the chaotic. Leaving aside their grim recent record of five Test defeats in a row - two of which came in a seminal home series loss to Bangladesh last month - Pakistan's brand of dysfunction is best expressed in the nonsensical build-up to this series, which involved a near-daily churn of contradictory briefings about the preferred venues for the three Tests.

With Karachi and Lahore out of commission, and Rawalpindi pre-booked by an international conference, serious thought had been given to booting the show out to Abu Dhabi instead - much to Brendon McCullum's chagrin - before back-to-back fixtures in Multan were finally settled upon late last month. Despite the country's numerous hidden charms, Pakistan has never been a favourite venue for the travelling fan, and with numerous tour operators giving up on their plans amid the uncertainty, that is unlikely to change in the coming weeks.

However you view the build-up (or lack thereof), this is a match-up that deserves better than the shoe-horn treatment that it is being offered. England's last trip to Pakistan in December 2022 was an extraordinary triumph, set in motion by their pedal-to-the-metal batting in the series opener in Rawalpindi, but epitomised by Ben Stokes' magnificent captaincy throughout: from his perfectly weighted declaration to force victory on that dead deck, to his innovative slip-free field placings to prise out 20 wickets in similarly inhospitable conditions in Multan, and all the way through to his fearless faith in the rookie Rehan Ahmed, whose five wickets on debut in Karachi put a romantic seal on the campaign.

Times have changed fairly quickly since then, not least in the evolution of England's bowling attack. None of the three key protagonists on that previous tour - Anderson, Mark Wood and Ollie Robinson - will be making the return trip, with their not-quite-like-for-like replacements, Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse and Gus Atkinson combining in a seam attack that has played precisely zero overseas Tests in the whole of the Bazball era.

What's more, with Stokes absent through injury, the pressure will be on Ollie Pope to conjure the same alchemy from the tools at his disposal. Though he acquitted himself well as a leader in his three Tests against Sri Lanka, Pope was arguably guilty of over-attacking in their final-match loss at the Kia Oval - a trait which revealed the degree of subtlety in Stokes' methods that can sometimes be lost in the bravado of his team's overall approach.

If Pakistan have an edge, therefore, it will be in the make-up of their bowling attack. The union of Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah and Aamer Jamal is, on paper, the best attack that they have fielded in months, and offers a cutting edge that was absent for much of that 2022 campaign in particular. Though Jamal has played just three Tests, each of those came in a superb 18-wicket debut series in Australia, while a fully-fit Naseem could yet leave England longing for the 150kph exocets that Wood brought to that previous success.

No doubt the context of this series will come flooding back out once the teams take the field and Test cricket's familiar rhythms are back on centre stage. But right now, with no build-up, no fanfare - quite possibly no fans either - it does rather feel like cricket for the sake of cricket. The team that manages to park that existentialism the best may well steal an important march in the course of the coming five days.

Form guide

Pakistan LLLLL (last five Tests, most recent first)
England LWWWW

In the spotlight - Abrar Ahmed and Chris Woakes

England's batters - five of whom are set to make their second Test appearance in Multan - will doubtless recall Pakistan's standout performer from that first visit two years ago. With his Harry Potter glasses and a name that came pre-loaded with wizard-themed headlines, Abrar Ahmed could have been on a hiding to nothing in his maiden Pakistan appearance. Instead, he simply ripped through the repertoire that had served him so well in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy, to claim seven first-innings wickets and 11 in all in a memorably effective debut. Though England climbed into him at close to five an over across his 51 overs, that was in part a tribute to the mystery of his methods - hit out, before being got out - as epitomised by a wickedly delivered carrom ball that did for Zak Crawley in the first innings.

The stats are so stark that the man himself has given up pushing back against them. In 34 home Tests, Chris Woakes has claimed 137 wickets at a world-class average of 21.59. In 20 appearances overseas, however, those figures are a more earth-bound 36 at 51.88 - and he had basically abandoned hope of ever being called upon in foreign climes when he was overlooked for the tour of India earlier this year. But circumstances change fast, and with Anderson and Stuart Broad gone, and with Stokes' hamstring depriving the seam attack of another of its wisest old heads, the value of Woakes' experience supersedes any doubts about his impact in such conditions. He's here on merit, too, it should be said, after a stellar summer as England's attack leader - 24 wickets at 20.25 against West Indies and Sri Lanka ensure he will begin this campaign with faith in his methods, and the confidence of his team-mates.

Team news: Pakistan bring back the big bowling guns

Shan Masood has been in the firing line in the wake of the Bangladesh series loss, but he survives as captain for the time being, and is part of the same top seven that underwhelmed against Mehidy Hasan Miraz and Co. The notable changes come in the bowling attack, where Aamer Jamal makes his comeback from a back issue, and will reunite with Afridi and Naseem in what is widely recognised as Pakistan's premier seam attack. Khurram Shahzad, who took a six-wicket haul in the second Test against Bangladesh, misses out having failed to fully recover from an injury to his left side.

Pakistan: 1 Saim Ayub, 2 Abdullah Shafique, 3 Shan Masood (capt), 4 Babar Azam, 5 Saud Shakeel, 6 Mohammad Rizwan (wk), 7 Salman Ali Agha, 8 Aamer Jamal, 9 Shaheen Afridi, 10 Naseem Shah, 11 Abrar Ahmad

England welcome back Crawley at the top of the order, although he won't field in the slips due to the broken finger he sustained during the summer. Stokes, however, misses out once again, through a surfeit of caution as he gets himself back to full strength after a hamstring tear in August. Carse will make his debut, at the venue where his Durham team-mate Wood proved so effective two years ago, alongside Atkinson and Woakes - playing his first subcontinent Test since 2016 - while Jack Leach is set for his first appearance since the tour of India in February, alongside his Somerset team-mate Shoaib Bashir.

England: 1 Zak Crawley, 2 Ben Duckett, 3 Ollie Pope (capt), 4 Joe Root, 5 Harry Brook, 6 Jamie Smith (wk), 7 Chris Woakes, 8 Gus Atkinson, 9 Brydon Carse, 10 Jack Leach, 11 Shoaib Bashir

Pitch and conditions: Greener than standard in Multan

The Multan pitch has some grass on it but it was shaved on Saturday afternoon. England are not expecting the ball to reverse as early as it did on their last visit in 2022, as the square and outfield are much greener. There could, however, be some low bounce, to judge by the practice strips.

Stats and trivia

• England's 26-run victory on their last visit to Multan in December 2022 was also the most recent Test hosted at the venue.

• In total, Pakistan have won three of the previous six Tests held in Multan, including England's only other visit in 2005-06. India won by an innings in 2004, while a draw against West Indies completes the set.

• Joe Root needs 71 to overtake Alastair Cook's tally of 12,472 Test runs, the most made by an England batter, and the fifth-most by any player in Test history.

  Quotes

  "We came close to winning last time, but we let the matches slip away. We know how they play, but at the end of the day we have to see how to tackle it. We are clear in our mind and that's why we have named the XI."
  Pakistan's captain, Shan Masood believes his team has the tools to atone for their 3-0 loss two years ago.

  "We've got the skillset to fill that gap that Jimmy's left. Obviously it's never going to be easy, but it's going to be a great opportunity for those guys to learn and to bowl in some different conditions."
  Ollie Pope believes England's seam attack can rise to the challenge in unfamiliar conditions.