Pakistan couldn’t have hoped for a better venue than The Oval as they battle to level the four-match series, starting on Thursday in the 99th Test England will be staging at the famous ground in London.

Traditionally regarded as the season-ending Test centre in almost every English summer, The Oval breathes cricketing history since the very first Test on England soil was played here in August 1880 when the hosts defeated Australia by five wickets.

Situated in the Kennington area in the south of London, The Oval also saw the legend of Ashes being created here in 1882 when Australia clinched a seven-run win in two days.

A famous mock obituary appeared in the Sporting Times the very next day after England had capitulated in dramatic fashion from 51-2 to 78 all out while chasing just 85.

Aussie fast bowler Fred Spofforth, nicknamed ‘The Demon’, claimed 14 wickets in the match.

The Oval has seen many other wonderful Test performances. England’s highest-ever total of 903-7 was posted here in the 1938 Ashes Test when Len Hutton made the then Test record of scoring 364.

The only other triple century here was scored by Hashim Amla, when the elegant batsman hit an unbeaten 311 in 2012, the highest individual innings played by a South African.

West Indies speedster Michael Holding wrecked England’s hopes by claiming 14 wickets on an Oval featherbed dished for the 1976 series final Test.

And then in 1998, Sri Lanka’s legendary off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan bamboozled England with 16-220, including 9-65 in the second innings — the best match figures by any bowler at The Oval.

Coming to Pakistan, they have the best head-to-head record at The Oval than any other visiting side that has played more than one Test here. Out of the nine Tests played so far, Pakistan have secured four victories and lost three.

Sri Lanka have won the only Test they got to play at The Oval 18 years ago.

Australia, England’s biggest rivals, have won just seven and lost as many as 16 in 37 Tests at The Oval.

The West Indies have won six and lost seven of their 16 Tests here, New Zealand won only once and lost four in nine Oval Tests, India have also won just one and lost four in 12 matches, while South Africa’s only success in 14 appearances (six defeats) at this venue came four years ago.

Overall, England have been victorious in 40 Tests at The Oval, while finishing on the losing side 21 times with remaining 37 of the 98 matches drawn.

Pakistan’s first victory at The Oval stands out for many reasons. Touring England for the first time in 1954, Abdul Hafeez Kardar’s men arrived for the final Test of the four-match series in almost similar position Misbah-ul-Haq’s charges are currently facing.

Trailing 1-0, Pakistan bounced back brilliantly in a low-scoring game to square the rubber 1-1.

The architect of their maiden win on English soil was deadly accurate medium-pacer Fazal Mahmood, a bowler not dissimilar to England’s Alec Bedser who ironically was rested by the English selectors.

Fazal wreaked havoc with six wickets in each of England innings to end up with magnificent match bag of 12-99 as Pakistan celebrated winning a slender margin by 24 runs.

The next time these two teams met at The Oval was in 1962 when England comfortably wrapped up a 10-wicket win to crush Javed Burki’s side 4-0 in the five-match rubber.

The sole bright spot for Pakistan was Imtiaz Ahmed top-scoring in either innings with 49 and 98 in his final Test appearance.

Five years later, England again emerged winners but their eight-wicket victory was defiantly held up by a record ninth-wicket partnership of 190 between Asif Iqbal and Intikhab Alam until Mark Boucher and Pat Symcox surpassed the landmark by adding 195 for South Africa against Pakistan at Johannesburg in 1998.

Coming together at 65-8 with an innings thrashing imminent, Asif and Intikhab batted in contrasting styles to make England bat again, Asif struck a spectacular 146 — the all-rounder’s maiden Test hundred — off 244 balls with 22 fours and two sixes, while Intikhab contributed a sedate 51.

The 1974 Oval Test was drawn after both sides posted huge totals. Aided by Zaheer Abbas’ 240, Pakistan made 600-7 before England replied with 545 with Dennis Amiss making 183.

Pakistan were on top in the 1987 fixture by amassing 708 — their highest total against England — courtesy of Javed Miandad’s marathon knock of 260.

England were dismissed for 232 with leg-spinner Abdul Qadir taking 7-96. But a captain innings of 150 not out by Mike Gatting guided the hosts to safety after following on.

Pakistan, skippered by Miandad, finally broke through in the series-deciding match in 1992 largely due to the exploits of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis who took 15 wickets between them as England had no answer to reverse swing generated by the deadly pace duo.

The Wasim-Waqar combination, helped by leg-spinner Mushtaq Ahmed’s 6-78 in the second innings and opener Saeed Anwar’s glorious 176, hounded England in 1996 as Pakistan sealed a nine-wicket win to wrap up the three-match series 2-0 under Wasim’s leadership.

England didn’t host Pakistan in an Oval Test for the next 10 years. But when they did so in 2006, Pakistan got themselves embroiled in the infamous ball-tampering row resulting in the first match in Test history to be forfeited.

The reason was controversial Australian umpire Darrell Hair accusing Inzamam-ul-Haq’s side of tampering with the ball on the fourth afternoon of a game Pakistan had overwhelmingly dominated.

Even diplomacy of PCB chief Shaharyar Khan failed to persuade Inzamam’s team to play on after the tea interval.

And before the spot-fixing drama unfolded at Lord’s in 2010, Pakistan had sneaked to a four-wicket victory in the third Test at The Oval.

Azhar Ali was the top scorer of a bowler-dominated fixture with an unbeaten 92 in the first innings.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2016