The 24-year-old bespectacled Abrar showed surprise with seven wickets for 114 runs in 22 overs. He might have got the full 10 wickets if another teammate, leg-spinner Zahid Mahmood, had not taken the last three wickets.

England has two fifties in their innings – Ben Duckett 61 and Ollie Pope 60. Besides, Mark Wood remained unbeaten on 36 runs. In reply, Pakistan ended the first day at 107 for two. Captain Babar Azam and Saud Shakeel added 56 runs for the third-wicket pair. Babar is 61 and Shakeel is 32 unbeaten. England leads by 174 runs.

From his first-over dismissal of Zak Crawley to the extraction of Harry Brook – the man who made 240 runs in 181 deliveries last week – Abrar’s canny variations, delivered with a disconcerting flick, ensured Pakistan claimed more wickets in his 13 overs of the session than they had managed in a chastening opening day of the series in Rawalpindi.

Nevertheless, with two of his other victims, Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope, setting another high tempo with a brace of fast-paced 60s, England’s innings still had some substance at 180 for 5 after an extended two-and-a-half hour morning session in Multan, with Ben Stokes in situ on a relatively watchful 14 from 16, alongside Will Jacks.

As a measure of their tempo, England’s total was higher even than the 174 for 0 they had racked up before lunch en route to a record 506 for 4 on the first day of the series, but it was harder graft despite winning another useful toss. On a dry and cracked surface, that offered some early purchase for Faheem Ashraf’s cutters, in particular, Crawley even played the first-over maiden, having made Pakistan wait until the 39th over at Pindi for their first runless over.

But England is no longer a team prepared to wait for the ball with their name on it in such conditions, and not even the loss of Crawley to a sublime googly in Abrar’s first over could persuade them to temper their aggression for long. Having stood tall to the seamers to punch three trademark fours through the covers, Crawley was bowled clean through the gate for 19 from 37 balls as Abrar, with little discernible change of action, flicked out a fifth-ball wrong’un to take out the top of off stump and set the agenda for a morning of punch and counter-punch, in a contest that already feels in fast-forward.

Notwithstanding the delivery he had just witnessed, Pope – fresh from his century at Rawalpindi – signaled his intent with a first-ball reverse sweep for four off the final ball of Abrar’s over, but the same stroke nearly brought about his downfall against Zahid Mahmood, Pakistan’s other leg spinner, as he entered the attack in the 14th over.

Mahmood endured a chastening debut in Rawalpindi, where his four first-innings wickets came at an eyewatering cost of 235 runs. But this Multan surface proved significantly more to his liking from the outset. Twice in a row, his high-kicking leg breaks beat Pope’s outside edge, and when the batter responded by reversing his hands on a sweep next ball, he was given out lbw for 11 – only for umpire Marais Erasmus to overturn his decision on review when replays showed he had been struck on the glove, not the pad.

Duckett, by this stage, was once again showing he is a magnificent manipulator of angles in spinning conditions, as he rushed along to a 40-ball half-century with a showcase of sweeps, reverse-sweeps, and wristy late cuts. On 61, however, he too survived a curious case of glove before wicket, as he stooped for another reverse off Abrar and was given out on-field – but after some to-and-fro between Aleem Dar and the third umpire, Joel Wilson, that decision was also overturned. It mattered little, however. Before the over was done, Abrar had his man, as Duckett this time missed a conventional sweep and Babar Azam successfully reviewed the on-field not-out.

At 117 for 2 after 19 overs, England was once again clattering along at more than a run a ball, but there was no thought of consolidation as Joe Root, their best player of spin, came out to join Pope. On 8, Root played back to another big-turning leg break from Abrar, and once again, Pakistan’s review proved successful. And when, four overs later, Pope top-edged a reverse sweep to be caught at backward point for 60, England had slipped to 164 for 4.

There was time for further damage before the interval too, as Brook planted his front foot in a bid to take Abrar down over the long straight boundary, but scuffed his stroke high to Mohammad Nawaz at mid-off. And Abrar might even have made it six before the interval when Stokes, relatively becalmed but still eager to take the positive option, gave Nawaz another teaser at mid-on in the final over of the session.

New Zealand had abandoned its tour of the nation last year over security concerns, prompting England to follow suit. International teams have largely refused to tour Pakistan since an attack by Islamist militants on the Sri Lankan team bus in Lahore in 2009 killed six policemen and two civilians.

“We had promised our passionate fans that we will deliver high-quality home international cricket in 2022,” Zakir Khan, PCB director of international cricket said in a statement. “Today’s announcement of New Zealand’s double visit to Pakistan is part of that commitment.”
In the first leg of the tour, New Zealand plays Tests in Karachi (Dec. 27-31) and Multan (Jan. 4-8) before returning to Karachi for three ICC World Cup Super League matches between Jan. 11-15.

They begin the second leg of the tour in Karachi with four T20Is in April before the fifth game and two ODIs in Lahore. The last three ODIs will be played in Rawalpindi in May.

The political party of Pakistan’s World Cup-winning captain and former prime minister Imran Khan is now waging an anti-government movement. As a result, the situation is tense in and around the capital Islamabad. The main venue of the series is Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad. The venue of the series has been shifted to Multan for that.

Pakistan had already fixed Multan as the backup venue for the series. It is not possible to hold the series in Karachi and Lahore now as pitch repair work is underway. This is because the temperature in Multan is often above 40 degrees Celsius at this time. Last year, the PCB announced a camp for Pakistani women cricketers in Multan at this time of the year. The camp was finally postponed due to intense heat.

The Pakistan team will practice for the series in Lahore on June 1-4. The West Indies will arrive in Islamabad on June 8 and fly to Multan on a chartered flight. Three ODIs will be played on June 8, 10, and 12, all of which are part of the ICC Cricket World Cup Super League. The matches were scheduled to be played when the West Indies toured Pakistan in December last year. However, after the T20 series, Corona attacked the West Indies camp and returned without playing an ODI.