PAK vs AUS | “Dead, benign” – Steven Smith criticizes Rawalpindi's pitch

Australian star batter Steve Smith seemed to be very disappointed with the Rawalpindi pitch offered by Pakistan for the first Test match of the historic tour. It was a natural outcome as not just him but everyone watching the game too found the pitch extremely ‘dead and boring’. It was very evident that the match was going towards a draw. 

With around 1000 runs scored and just 14 wickets thus far in the game, there was much scrutiny on the nature of the surface. The Rawalpindi pitch is expected to offer some seam movement and facilitate the pacers but this surface had absolutely no evidence of any assistance. 

“There’s not a great deal of pace and bounce in it for the seamers. I think the spinners have offered a little bit,” said Smith at the post day conference. Contrary to expectations, the pitch actually helped the spinners. Pakistan left-arm spinner Nauman Ali who picked up four wickets was the only bowler to have somewhat good figures in this game. 

“I thought it would break up a little bit more and probably turn a bit more from the start, but it probably hasn’t done so. But yeah, pretty benign, dead wicket,” he added. This clearly was not the kind of wicket Smith was expecting coming into the Test match. 

The batter spoke about how Australia could try to force a result if they could get a good lead in the first innings. A lead of 100 or so and they could try to dismiss the Pakistan batters for a low total. He was hoping that the tail could add some quick runs. 

"Pretty annoyed [with the way I got out]”, said Smith when speaking about his own dismissal. The batsman had played really well before being dismissed for 78 in an attempt to sweep Nauman. Even if he had executed that shot all he would have got was a single. 

“I’m disappointed in my shot selection and probably just the position of the game as well. Perhaps if we were five down we might have been able to push a little harder in the morning and potentially set something up for the fourth innings of the match,” he concluded. 

Australia would still be hoping to pull off a miracle and win this match. At the time of writing, Pakistan have put on 76 runs on the board with a loss of zero wickets. The home team has a lead of 93 runs, while the game is heading towards a draw.