Thanks to the inability of those behind the stumps to catch the edges, the return of Mohammad Amir to centre stage did not start with a bang. Initially it was no more noteworthy than the comebacks routinely delivered by the majority of rock stars.
Amir had in his sights the England captain who had some stern words to say about fixers before the series began. Twice he found the edge of Alastair Cook’s bat; but twice the ball thudded from the hands – or the gloves – of the culprits on to the green carpet of Lord’s.
Did the keeper and first slip possess no sense of theatre? Was there extra tension behind the stumps as Amir sought his first Test wicket for six years? Or were they surprised by the extra pace Amir generates? So far, despite his slender frame he has been the fastest bowler on view.
On 22 Cook prodded forward and the edge reached Mohamed Hafeez, who once declared that he would not play with Amir – a declaration he duly retracted. The straightforward catch was spilled. In mid-afternoon Misbah-ul-Haq switched Amir to the Nursery end and once again he found Cook’s edge with the first ball of his spell. The wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed dived to his left to complete a regulation catch, whereupon the ball jumped from his gloves on to the turf before bouncing humiliatingly into his face.
Both chances should have been taken. Amir, a suitably feisty character with the ball in his hand, could only bellow his frustration. He deserved more since, despite the figures, he had been the most dangerous paceman in Pakistan’s sinister attack – it is very rare in international cricket to find a trio of left-armers sharing the new ball.
Hence the prodigal’s return was barely providing a diversion in a game that in its own right is becoming a source of genuine fascination – especially after the series against Sri Lanka.
The reappearance of Amir had been inserted into diaries and liberally signposted by the press-box sages. Yet when he finally emerged from the pavilion in his pads on Friday morning after the dismissal of Wahab Riaz there was barely a murmur from the members. The odd isolated “boo” was heard alongside polite applause from the decorous clientele of St John’s Wood and that might have been directed at the successful bowler, Chris Woakes. In the pavilion it was by all accounts quiet but this was not necessarily hostile silence; it might have been an indifferent or even unknowing silence.
Meanwhile there was a patter of not so tiny feet at the Nursery end as Amir made his way on to the ground. But that was the sound of newshounds in the hermetically-sealed press box sprinting out into the open air to gauge the reaction to his arrival. That aside no one seemed too bothered.
Amir swished three boundaries, one from the inside edge, two from the middle of his bat, before he was the last man out.
Then he was bustling in from the Pavilion end. The radar was not working reliably and 14 runs came from his first two overs yet he did not look wracked with nerves. After Hafeez dropped the catch Amir’s concentration wavered; the next ball was a leg-stump half-volley to Cook and the ball sped away on an outfield that appears faster than the greens at Troon.
Amir produced a little swing – Chris Woakes had alerted us to this possibility in the morning – but the final column in his figures remained infuriatingly barren. In his fourth spell – Misbah was inclined to use his pacemen in short spells – he was content to act as a support bowler, not his natural role, for Yasir Shah, the leg-spinner had made the incursions throughout the afternoon. He kept the ball wide of the off stump of Cook, who was playing one of his more skittish innings. Usually it is a brave man who seeks to be more patient than Cook. Time passed. Dots were implanted into scorebooks. Then Amir propelled another delivery wide of off stump. Perhaps it was a fraction quicker. Cook pushed out unnecessarily and the ball cannoned on to his stumps. Out stretched the arms of Amir in celebration, one that we are likely to witness frequently this summer. Cook was finally undone from an edge that had the decency to head for the stumps rather than the fumbling hands of the fielders. Amir was back.