Pakistan declared their first innings on 434 for nine on Day 2 of the opening Test against Sri Lanka in Rawalpindi on Tuesday, with Saud Shakeel left stranded on 93, seven runs short of what would have been his fifth Test century.
Resuming from their overnight 281 for five — built around Monday’s stumps total — Pakistan added a further 153 runs before captain Babar Azam’s side called a halt to the innings. Shakeel had resumed on an unbeaten 57 and anchored the innings through the morning and afternoon sessions, reaching 91 not out at lunch off 192 balls with nine boundaries, according to Dawn. He added only two more runs after the break before the declaration came, with Aaj News and Sri Lanka’s Ada Derana both reporting he “missed his century by seven runs” when Pakistan chose to close the innings.
It capped a batting performance of unusual depth for a Pakistan side that has struggled for consistency in Test cricket in recent years. Five batters crossed fifty across the two days: debutant Tayyab Arif (57), fellow debutant Mohammad Taha (51), Babar Azam (50), Shakeel (93) and debutant Arafat Minhas, who made a composed 52 lower down the order. Ghazi Ghori, who put on 96 for the sixth wicket with Shakeel before falling for 48 — caught at gully off Dilshan Madushanka — also played a key supporting hand, per Dawn’s lunch-session report.
Sri Lanka’s bowling was shared around without any one bowler dominating. Asitha Fernando and Dilshan Madushanka finished with three wickets apiece, according to Ada Derana, with the rest of the attack splitting the remaining wickets across a long day in the field on a Rawalpindi pitch described by Dawn’s correspondent as “hard and green.”
| Batter | Runs | Dismissal |
|---|---|---|
| Tayyab Arif | 57 | c K. Mendis b Fernando |
| Mohammad Taha | 51 | c de Silva b Dinusha |
| Babar Azam (c) | 50 | c K. Mendis b Madushanka |
| Saud Shakeel | 93 | not out (innings declared) |
| Ghazi Ghori | 48 | c Sooriyabandara b Madushanka |
| Arafat Minhas | 52 | not out (innings declared) |
| Total | 434/9 declared | |
The declaration brings Pakistan’s first innings to a close after roughly a day and a half of batting, handing the bowlers the new ball and a fresh pitch to work with as Sri Lanka begin their reply. It is the first Test of the series between the two sides, and comes after Pakistan’s Test side has been searching for a settled top order following a run of modest results — a theme covered in PakDaily’s preview of the series last week.
For Minhas and Arif in particular, fifties on debut mark promising first impressions in the longest format, while Shakeel’s innings continues a now-familiar pattern for the left-hander, who has repeatedly posted big scores for Pakistan in Tests at home.
Our Opinion
There is real substance in a Pakistan top and middle order that produced five fifties in a single innings, and the fact that three of them came from players new to Test cricket is the more encouraging detail buried in the scorecard — it suggests the batting pipeline the selectors have been promising for a while may finally be bearing some fruit; the flip side, visible in Shakeel’s 93 and Ghori’s 48, is the familiar Pakistani habit of getting batters in deep only to lose them, or the clock, before three figures are reached, and until that conversion rate improves, 434 will remain a very good first-innings score rather than the match-defining one it could have been.
