In the wake of Mohammad Yousuf’s abrupt recall-up to international duty to bolster a fragile Pakistan batting order, Salman Butt indirectly questioned the merit of such a selection. According to Butt, Pakistan had fared no better in England with their elder statesmen so why not simply keep the faith with the current young side.

Allow me to distill Butt’s point to its very core – a luxury I as a blogger have and Butt, as an uncertain captain subject to the administration of a temperamental cricket board does not: importing any of the two Y’s to England in response to the failure of our batsmen is not a solution and will not miraculously reverse our fortunes overseas.

Next, allow me to expand on Butt’s point to postulate a broader theory which is implicit and undeniable in the face of Butt’s above indictment: we’re in this mess because all Pakistani batsmen have been historically under-prepared to cope with a ball which deviates in the air or off the seam and management needs to wake up to this blatant fact made deafening in light of the first test against England.

Mohammad Yousuf’s recall is nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to an embarrassing debacle. There were no indications that he was needed at any point during the tests against Australia but here he is, despite the fact that no one seems to understand quite how he got there, and all concerned parties are unwilling to take responsibility for his inclusion.

Perhaps because they know that Mohammad Yousuf is not the solution they’re looking for. Yes, I’m well aware of the record held by both Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf against England. But how many of those tests did we end up winning anyway, as rightly pointed out by Butt.

Don’t get me wrong here - I do think our younger batsmen could do with the advice of a senior batsman or two (preferably Younis Khan). However, do not fall under the impression that the presence of any of the Y’s would have averted defeat. It may have reduced the margin of it, but we would have ended up falling short nonetheless. And is there really any honour to a defeat by 100 runs as compared to an innings and a 100 runs? Surely, with the quality of bowling at our disposal, we owe it to ourselves to examine the problems within the infrastructure of our batting more closely than to simply gloss over them by throwing Yousuf to the fore.

Pakistan’s batting failure in the first test is merely symptomatic of a well-established infirmity our batsman have long suffered from – a weakness against the swinging ball. The series against Australia may have masked this limitation given the fact that the off-colour Hilfenhaus and Johnson were unable to generate any prodigious movement.

Anderson and company are a different animal altogether and a fullish ball with even a hint of shape is kryptonite for tentative batsmen. Irfan Pathan’s devastating spell in the third test in Karachi comes to mind and we only won that because Mohammad Asif was able to strike back with equal venom.

Truth be told, it’s not just our batsmen who suffer from this technical limitation. I believe the hardest type of bowling to deal with is swing and a weakness against quality swing bowling is a characteristic shared by most international sides. Transplant the marauding Indians or Sri Lankans against this English attack in these conditions and the flat track at Colombo would be a distant fantasy.

However, it’s a fact that we are the least equipped to deal with this brand of bowling and for that we can’t blame Umar Akmal, Umar Amin and Azhar Ali. A batsman’s skill and technique is a product of the environment in which he was molded and the PCB administration has bred our batsmen on pancake flat pitches. The first step towards coping with a ball which moves in the air is to learn how to negotiate a ball which deviates off its seam and simulating such conditions is easily achieved by preparing tracks which assist such seam movement.

The PCB chooses to adopt a more protective approach towards their batsmen, perhaps under the misconception that confidence will compensate for technique. I can understand the need for true bounce and predictable shape during the infancy of one’s development, but surely our batsmen would be better served by being exposed to trickier pitches by the time they establish themselves at the first class level. Sending our guys out there with zero aptitude against swing bowling, not to mention seam, is akin to sending a soldier into a warzone with one round of ammo.

It’s weird that our administration hasn’t ever adopted a culture of preparing seaming tracks given the composition of our bowling attacks. Historically, we’ve always been reliant on our quicker men and it seems to be a no-brainer that one would prepare tracks suited to ones strengths. But time and again we’ve seen the PCB role out pavements for our home games in an attempt to protect out batsmen rather than address their weaknesses. It’s an approach which typifies successive PCB administrations that elect to implement myopic policies with complete disregard to a long term strategy.

What you saw in the first test was a product of the PCB’s shortsightedness and not a denunciation of the talent and capabilities of our younger batsmen. There is no point to sending Akmal, Amin and Ali back to the training grounds of the PCB to hone their skills since those grounds will be useless in preparing them for the standard of swing and seam bowling prevalent in international cricket. Mohammad Yousuf, despite all the runs he has scored, is a product of the same system and I doubt his high back-lift and lazy wafts will repel Anderson and Broad. Our younger players will have to learn on the job so they might as well treat this series as the training their administration was too scared to provide them.

The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.