Offspinner Sajid Khan of Pakistan has discovered several techniques to irritate England, including the slapping of his thighs and the twisting of his mustache, which are signs of a borderline infringement of personal space. He has mostly done this by tricking them with the angle of his spin or the flight of his deliveries, but on Friday he discovered another way to confuse the English: the bilingualism of their spin bowlers.

When Saud Shakeel flicked Shoaib Bashir away after the fourth delivery of the 86th over to give Sajid the strike, the two got together to talk about how to handle it. They didn’t seem to care whether the stump mic caught them up.
Sajid claims that the chat was meant for Pakistani spinners Rehan Ahmed and Shoaib Bashir, not for each other, which could hardly have been the original objective.
“The sole reason we were talking loudly in Urdu was to trick the bowlers. We tried to trick Rehan and Shoaib into thinking we were just looking for the one person because they are fluent in Urdu. They raised the field and the bowlers flighted it when we did that. Saud advised me to aim for the big shot with all of your might once they do.
Sajid also did. In a similar manner, Sajid hit two sixes and a boundary in the following over that Bashir delivered. He consistently found the center of the bat and swung towards the midwicket boundary. Sajid cleared the rope with ease, taking the guys at long-off and long-on. By this point, Pakistan’s lead had grown and England’s bowling effort was starting to falter.
Although Rehan agreed that the innings was of high quality, he rejected Sajid’s assertions. “He didn’t fool me at all, he just said it for the media,” chuckled he. “I didn’t hear him at all. I thought he was going to attempt to scoop me, but it didn’t really work, and he yelled something like, “I’m going to run down this ball.”
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