Former Test opener Sadiq advised top six batsmen to improve their footwork

A former Pakistani Test opener and younger brother of the Pakistani batsmen Hanif and Mushtaq Mohammad, Sadiq Mohammad has advised Pakistan head coach Misbah-ul-Haq and batting coach Younis Khan to take serious note of the way the top six batsmen lost their wickets in the rain-disrupted second Test against England in Southampton.

The most youthful of the popular Mohammad siblings — four of whom played for Pakistan — told Dawn that the current top-order batting is delicate on the grounds that they needed footwork to battle the swinging deliveries from the England quartet of James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Chris Woakes and Sam Curran.

At the Ageas Bowl, Pakistan in their first innings drooped from 102 for 2 to 223 for nine on the second day of the match.  Opener Abid Ali (60) and wicket-attendant/batsman Mohammad Rizwan (60 not out) could intrigue with the bat.

“If we take a good look at the TV footage of how our batsmen got out then one notices all of them either got trapped in the slip cordon or trapped LBW,” Sadiq remarked. “And the reason is simple: all the batsmen had no footwork and their front foot never went in front of the crease.

“Rather than of front foot movement, they moved their backfoot, to play forward and tried to drive the moving ball. All of them fell on the deliveries pitched up to them since they let the ball come too close to them which allowed the ball to swing both ways.

“With this helpless technique, they will undoubtedly get captured behind the wicket or find themselves trapped in front of the stumps,” Sadiq, who scored 2,579 runs in 41 Tests between 1969-70 and 1980-81, stressed.

The heavy atmosphere due to cloudy conditions at the Ageas Bowl invariably helped the England seamers, Sadiq noted.