Shafiq labels knock best of his career

Pakistan batsman Asad Shafiq has labelled his century in the first Test against Australia at the Gabba as the best innings of his career, after coming into the game at arguably the lowest ebb of his 50-Test career.

Pakistan were four down and still 325 adrift of the target when Shafiq came on the increase in their fourth innings with an Australia win appearing a foregone conclusion.

Considering the target was 490 and no team in Test history has successfully chased anything in excess of 418. 

That the game went into the fifth day is a story itself; at one stage there were even talks in the Pakistan camp about a change in the flight bookings. The umpires added eight overs into the penultimate day thinking the result was a possibility on day four. Many had even earlier felt the game would be over in three days. 

But Shafiq had different plans, playing one of the finest ever innings in a run chase. Although it could not earn his side victory, it took Pakistan remarkably close to an unlikely victory.

Shafiq scored 137, matching his previous highest Test score, and stitched together three 60-plus run partnerships with the tail. His effort was instrumental in taking the team to 450, the joint-second highest fourth-innings total in the history of five-day Test cricket. 

It was a stellar effort in more than one way. Pakistan’s batting struggles on the bouncy surfaces in Australia are well-known. Their batsmen’s inability to score runs Down Under is well-documented. They had not scored 400 in their last five six tours to Australia going back to 1990. 

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 “It is the best innings of my career,” Shafiq told cricket.com.au after the match.

 “I am just feeling great. It would have been even better had we won the match. Still I am happy that we recovered from such a bad position and came so close to victory.” 

“I don’t think anybody would have thought that we would come this close.”

Shafiq himself was short of runs and under massive pressure coming into the series. He’d scored just 58 runs in his last seven innings, including three ducks. He had bagged two pairs in 2016. It wouldn’t be wrong to suggest he was at the lowest point of his Test career. 

Before his knock, Shafiq would have been the most likely to face the axe if Pakistan had considered a reshuffle of their batting order. But he says he didn’t bother about getting dropped and even if it happened he would have considered it part-and-parcel of the trade. 

“I had not done well in the last couple of matches so personally it was an important innings for me,” he said. “I was just looking for a chance to score big to regain confidence.

“I wasn’t really bothered about getting dropped. I don’t think like this.” 

“Getting dropped from the team is also part of the life and part of the game so I really don’t worry about such things. I just think positive about my next innings.”

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The 30-year-old batsman’s batting position has also been the subject of plenty of debate of late, following the decision to drop him back to number six, having elevated him into the top three during Pakistan's tour of England earlier this year.

That move came after Mohammad Hafeez lost form and Shan Masood failed to perform in England and Shafiq bagged a pair in the third Test in Birmingham.

Coming in at No.4 for the fourth and final Test at The Oval – though he would have batted at first-drop had it not been for Yasir Shah’s nightwatchman stint – Shafiq scored a hundred in his sole innings for the match.

He then batted at No.3 for the first time in his Test career in the next series against West Indies in the United Arab Emirates, registering three fifties (67, 5, 68, 58no) in the first two matches in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

But after he bagged a pair in the final Test, he was pushed back to No.6 for Pakistan's two-Test tour of New Zealand.

Shafiq has a strong record at No.6 – batting there for the vast majority of his 51 Tests to date - and becoming the only batsman to amass nine hundreds in the position. But that is largely because all the former great number six batsmen – the likes of Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting, VVS Laxman, Shivnarine Chanderpaul – were promoted after proving their worth at six. 

Before his Test debut, Shafiq had scored 93 percent of his first-class runs as a top-order batsman, including a century on first-class debut as an opener in 2007, and in the same season registered 223 in Faisalabad which to date remains his highest score in professional cricket. 

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“If you ask my personal opinion I prefer to bat at three because before coming into the Test team I had never played at six,” he said. 

“But in the interest of team you have to sacrifice many things.”

“The team management thinks I can be more useful at number six and I am happy with it. Whatever role I am given I will try my best to live up to the expectations.”

Shafiq refuted the suggestion his recent shifts in the batting order had affected his form or confidence, but admitted he was under pressure coming into the series in Australia.

"There was a pressure on me because as we are in the new conditions,” he said. “We have come from UAE where the wickets are very different.”

“This performance has given us a belief that we can win from any situation. We may have lost the match but it will boost our morale for the next games in Melbourne and Sydney.”

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