RAWALPINDI, Pakistan (AP) — A dry pitch prepared with the help of industrial-sized fans and outdoor heaters has lured England to go with a three-pronged spin attack including Rehan Ahmed against Pakistan for the series-deciding third test starting on Thursday.
Ahmed hasn’t played in any international format since February. Gus Atkinson was the only specialist pacer. They replaced Matthew Potts and Brydon Carse, who made an impressive test debut in the series and picked up nine wickets in the two Multan matches.
Left-armer Jack Leach and off-spinner Shoaib Bashir are the other England spinners.
Ahmed was 18 when he debuted in Pakistan two years ago and took a five-wicket haul in Karachi.
The groundstaff at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium have been using giant-sized, hot-air fans for the last three days to dry out the 22-yard strip. They also used outdoor patio heaters behind the fans to hasten the process.
“They’ve had the rakes out, the fans and the heaters on the pitch,” England batter Harry Brook said with a smile on Tuesday at training.
“Hopefully, it’s just like any other Pakistani pitch. It’s good to bat on for the first few days and then, hopefully, we can get a bit of turn out of it at the back end of the game.”
England won the first test by an innings and Pakistan reused the same Multan pitch and neutralized the visitor’s through spinners Sajid Khan and Noman Ali to level the series by 152 runs last week.
Pakistan captain Shan Masood wished for another turning pitch for the series decider after they ended an 11-test winless run at home.
“We,” Brook said, “have just got to keep on playing the way we have done. The way that we’ve been playing over the last few years has been really entertaining and we’ve drawn crowds and people have wanted to watch. If we keep on playing like that, the results will take care of itself.”
England has happy memories of Rawalpindi, where it racked up 657 runs in 101 overs during its last tour and won a thriller in the final session. But that flat pitch was in stark contrast to what Pakistan is trying to create this week.
Brook, who scored a century in that test two years ago, said, “It was awesome to bat on, and we scored at a good rate of knots. This game’s probably going to be slightly different. It might turn earlier on, who knows? It might be a good pitch to start with and we get off to a flyer.”
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England: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (captain), Jamie Smith, Gus Atkinson, Rehan Ahmed, Jack Leach, Shoaib Bashir.
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