Pakistan v England Second Test Player Tips: Show faith in Pope at 6/1

• Take no-ton gamble

• Pope has strong win rate

• Eye Pakistan lower-order

• Read the second Test preview here

Pakistan v England
Tuesday 15 October 06:00
TV: live on Sky Sports

No century in match

The big conundrum for game two is not which team is superior. Pakistan have made doubly sure of that by leaving out three of their best players. It's how much of an impact a used Multan surface has.

In a desperate attempt to gain a foothold in the contest, Pakistan look likely to order the surface used for the first Test be used again. The natural reaction to that is to reckon that it will be a spin festival with batters struggling for big scores.

The problem with that theory is that the track for game one was so flat that it may require even more heavy workload than the 353 overs that were slammed down in the first Test for it to suffer significant detioration. Sure, there was the odd bit of uneven bounce in Pakistan's second innings but heavy rollers in the aftermath and repair work to bowlers' footmarks may negate that.

Of course we could be wrong about that and the surface may crumble quickly. Or the truth may be somewehere between the two. The price, then, that is eyecatching is the 17/29.50 with Sportsbook that no century is scored in the match. It is a price you would expect to see if this were a fresh pitch. In other words, perfectly standard.

In that respect, then, it is not technically a wrong price. It is only wrong if the top goes from the Multan track and instead of the pitch playing like new for a first- and second-innings, it behaves like it should for a fourth, fifth, six and seventh innings.

In the last three years there have been 211 centuries scored in 120 matches. A total of 157 of those have been in the first or second match innings. So you can see the rationale for reckoning that the 17/29.50 might be worth a nibble. It's a gamble but it has some sense to it.

Top England first-innings runscorer

Ollie Pope made a duck in the first Test. It was the batting equivalent of winning the lottery only to discover you'd put the ticket through the wash.

Maybe he will put that right in Multan round two. Maybe he won't. But what we do know is that Pope is underrated for runs as he returns to the ranks after leading England to one of their more extraordinary successes.

Pope, as you can see in the table below, has a strong record on winning this market. So Sportsbook's 6/17.00 is the definition of underrated. Sure, Harry Brook is a major threat, largely by dint of how quickly he scores, but there are no others to fear. Look at the win rate for England's highest Test runscorer.

The biggest obstacle could be Zak Crawley, also at 6/17.00. Crawley looked impressive on his return to the side and the great thing about backing him in Asia is that seam and swing is so rare that his big weakness outside off stump is likely to get him into trouble. Splitting stakes on the pair isn't the worst idea in the world.

Top Pakistan first-innings runscorer

Babar Azam's axing has denied us the opportunity to bet a guy who wins at a rate of 355. In his absence there is precious little to get excited about and, unlike England, it could be shrewd to look down the lists for bigger numbers.

Aamer Jamal, our first-choice, is not quite right at Sportsbok's 14/115.00, but we can play at slightly better odds of 20.019/1 on the exchange. He should bat one place higher. We also note the 40/141.00 about Sajid Khan. Sajid has a first-class century but hasn't shown much acumen in his eight Tests so far. Still it could be that a 30 or 40 wins this.

There are some mean prices which needed to be mentioned as big swerves. Mohammad Rizwan, for example, at just 9/25.50 with a win rate of just 12.5%.

Now read Pakistan v England Second Test Tips: Panic-button Pakistan in trouble