‘Duckett’s love affair with Pakistan continues’

“[Ben] Duckett’s love affair with Pakistan continues,” Michael Atherton said as the England opener brought up his fourth Test hundred in the second Test in Multan.

Duckett superbly swept and reverse-swept his way to three figures. In fact, to reduce his efforts to just those two shots is to do him a disservice.

Joining Atherton and Nasser Hussain on the Sky Cricket Podcast earlier this year, Duckett said: “I think now I’ve got over 10 sweep shots, both sides of the wicket.

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“I did it a bit in Pakistan [on the 2022 tour]. And it’s not like I’m trying to smack every ball for four, I’ve got different gears I can go up with all of those different sweep shots.”

And go through the gears he did, Duckett brining up a 120-ball hundred, fittingly, with a firmly-swept four.

Of the 103 runs he’d scored at that moment, 50 of them had come via sweeps, leaving Hussain baffled by Pakistan’s approach for large parts of day two in Multan.

“You know what’s coming from this England side, especially with Duckett on a surface like that,” he said. “You must prepare before, and I don’t think Pakistan did.

“He [Athers] said to me this morning, ‘Duckett is going to be the key, because he is going to sweep everything’. That’s exactly what happened.

“It’s so difficult to bowl against – bowl your best ball and you still get swept – and it’s so difficult to captain against, because he has such a variety of sweeps.

“Duckett was quite brilliant, and Shan Masood looked completely lost about what to do.”

Atherton added: “I thought Duckett was brilliant today. That was a fantastic innings.

“He’s going to remember this place very fondly. It’s here [Pakistan] where he came back into the England team, of course – after a bit of a false start way back in 2016/17.

“It’s one of the big decisions [Ben] Stokes and [Brendon] McCullum have made, bringing Duckett in at the top of the order, as an opener. He hasn’t looked back since.”

In 2022, Duckett returned to the Test fold after six years out of favour, having averaged a paltry 15.71, with only one fifty, across four Tests in Bangladesh and India. The belief was that he couldn’t play spin.

On his return in the opening Test of England’s 3-0 whitewash victory in Rawalpindi, Duckett put such assertions to bed with a magnificent 110-ball 107 on a day that England smashed over 500.

‘Bazball’ had already arrived that summer, but such a dominant display – of which Duckett was very much at the heart of – in the sub-continent was truly when the rest of the world took note.

Duckett followed up his maiden Test ton in Rawalpindi with further sizeable contributions of 63 and 79 in Multan, as well as an unbeaten, second-innings 82 in Karachi.

That said, his one failing for his stunning return to Test cricket so far has been not converting more of those scores into centuries.

A first hundred at home came against Ireland at Lord’s last summer, while his 153 in Rajkot during the tour of India earlier this year is his Test best, but there’s been 10 fifties along the way (added to his first in Bangladesh back in 2016) that he hasn’t translated into Test tons.

“It was more a relief than anything,” Duckett told Sky Sports.

“It’s not like I’ve been out of form, I’ve felt really good for six months to a year now but just haven’t converted those 70s and 80s.

“I just wanted to get there and hopefully now I’ve got over the line in this game, I can take learnings from what I did.

“It’s certainly a mindset thing. It’s not really something you can coach, but I was definitely more proactive today in the 70s and 80s, still looking to reverse-sweep on 99 – and not go into my shell.

“It was trying to get there the way I got to 99.”

Duckett added: “I obviously got my opportunity here a few years ago and I’m so thankful I did, because that series went well.

“They probably didn’t know much about me then, so it was probably a lot easier, but they know my strengths now.”

Which only serves to make Duckett’s innings all the more impressive, especially when coupled with the turn now on offer on this effectively day-seven pitch in Multan (after being used for the first Test), which later triggered an England collapse of 4-for-14.

The tourists closed the day on 239-6, still some 127 runs behind Pakistan in their first innings, but Duckett is bullish that there is hope yet of clinching another series win with one game to play.

“I think we’ll really stress winning the first hour tomorrow,” Duckett said. “Runs are going to be so vital.

“If we can get as close to them as we can, we know that they can crumble and the pressure is over to them. We’re 1-0 up in this series, and we won the last series 3-0.”

He added: “I know that they’re going to fight the whole way through this game and try and make it as hard as they can for us.

“But we already believe we’re in the game. We’ve got world-class players, two that missed out today who will be eager to get runs in the second innings.

“I think if we bowl well, if we can try and keep the chase to anywhere around 200 or less, we’ll believe we’ll win that game.”

And, in that set of circumstances, you certainly wouldn’t put it past Duckett sweeping England to another famous victory.

Watch day three of the second Test between Pakistan and England in Multan, live on Sky Sports Cricket and Main Event from 5.50am on Thursday, ahead of play starting from 6am. Stream with NOW