An emotional Abdullah Shafique said he was relieved to put the "challenges of failure" behind him after just his second hundred in two years. Having been through a prolonged slump after a blistering start to Test cricket that once put him on the cusp of becoming the fastest cricketer ever to reach 1000 Test runs, Shafique put together a 253-run stand with captain Shan Masood, managing a stirring century of his own.
"A sportsman has to face challenges and go through failure," Shafique said. "I'm thankful to the team management and the captain for trusting me and giving me a fair run. You face a lot of mental challenges and lots of doubts, but you have to overcome it all and perform."
Shafique's gratitude to his captain is well placed. Pakistan's impatience for poor form and alacrity with which they have tended to drop struggling players is lore by this point. But Masood, upon assuming the captaincy, stressed the need for players to feel secure in the side, making an impassioned case for keeping faith in him.
"Saim [Ayub] scored two 50s in the last two Tests, if we'd dropped him after the first Test, I've had that happen to me; it's not nice," he had said. "When I was out of the team for two years, I averaged over 60 in List A cricket, but Imam [ul-Haq-] and Fakhar [Zaman] were consistently performing. I didn't complain that I wasn't being selected, because I understood the level of competition was high. If the coach was backing the players, they were doing the right thing."
Shafique, though, knows there were ultimately limits to Pakistan's selectors' endurance. Since he scored a hundred in the first Test against England two years ago, he averaged 24.57 in 21 innings; he crossed 30 just five times, and managed one hundred and one half-century. With a difficult tour of South Africa coming up over the festive period, he was well aware he needed to vindicate his captain.
"It was a very important day as the first one of the series," Shafique said. The whole team understood the value of setting the tone up front because that's the mode in which the team plays thereafter. The wicket is challenging to bat on a fresh pitch with the new ball, but the partnership between me and Shan gave the team a big boost."
After Ayub fell early, Pakistan might have feared another probing day with the bat, but Masood took the attack to England's bowlers, with Shafique content playing second fiddle. As the scoreboard began to slant in Pakistan's favour, there were glimpses of Shafique's style and panache; he brought up his half-century with a six, and went from 94 to 100 with perhaps the shot of the day, an elegant gallop forward to drive Jack Leach into the long-on advertising hoardings.
"It's a challenge batting for long because of this extreme heat in Multan. But you can't let yourself make excuses and keep trying to do what you are required to do. How well you take your opportunity is what matters. It's not just the batter but the whole team which is confident when you do well."
Pakistan seem never to have lost their confidence in Shafique. Across two sessions as England's bowlers toiled in Multan, Shafique went about demonstrating why that was.