Pak vs Eng – Pakistan awaits their date with mediocrity as a familiar story unfolds in Multan

Like a plane taking off or a group of suspiciously adult-looking teenagers riding a roller coaster Final destination Movie, you know where this is going. Pakistan are about to undertake a similarly innocuous task when England, having had enough of it, finally hand it back to Pakistan sometime tomorrow. They will have to fend off one of England's weakest bowling attacks on one of their quietest surfaces.

But unlike that Test match, let's get to the point: Pakistan found a way to ignore the conditions when they collapsed in the third innings. No team has a lower average third innings score this year and Pakistan's team tells the story of their year; 115, 172 and 146. Sydney, Rawalpindi, Rawalpindi. Played three times, lost three.

Josh Hazlewood blew them away in Sydney as Pakistan squandered a narrow lead. That may have hardly been surprising, but Bangladesh used Pakistan's vulnerability at this stage of the game as an template to pave the way to victory. The danger of setting up a flat wicket to bat on first is that that side is often the only one with the potential to lose as the game nears its end. It's a vulnerable position, and like a film from the aforementioned series, every situation suddenly seems fraught with danger.

The surface denunciations have already begun, but Pakistan would do well not to get involved. When Naseem Shah – now the pick of Pakistan's unrewarded bowlers – vented his frustration at the lack of fast bowling support from the field in the first Test against Bangladesh in Rawalpindi, it was difficult to question anything he said. But Pakistan completely collapsed two sessions later, handing Bangladesh a ten-wicket win. It turns out that if you're dancing around the ground without making contact or sending straight deliveries into the air, you don't need much help from the surface for wickets.

“We’re still about 60 runs ahead,” Pakistan head coach Jason Gillespie said at the end of the game. “We suspect England's approach will be to bat and try to take the lead before going against us. That seems to be their game plan. However, we cannot control how they play; we can only concentrate on our own performance.”

However, knowledge of the English fixture list is not necessarily a safeguard against preventing it. After all, Pakistan knew they had a nearly four-year home Test winless streak, but they weren't ready to end it yet.

Salman Ali Agha said yesterday he was confident the cracks would “open wide” in the last two days. Jack Leach – who was part of the team that engineered that remarkable Pindi victory in 2022 – and Shoaib Bashir might be interested to know. Shan Masood and Abdullah Shafique's return to form is just an innings old and Babar Azam's quest continues. And while Masood has repeatedly pointed out the winning positions that Pakistan achieved during his time as captain, Pakistan must take similar responsibility for pushing these advantageous positions into the abyss of defeat in every single incident.

Once again the hosts find themselves in a situation where the boring draw that ends their losing streak – the bare minimum that Pakistan's fans should expect given the conditions and the opponents' bowling quality – can only be achieved with the kind of courage that they have not been able to muster in any of the three Tests they have played so far this year.

Than that Final destination The series will confirm that even mediocrity can be a difficult bar to overcome.

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