Haris Rauf to Rahmanullah Gurbaz. Short, wide, four.

Rauf keeps digging the ball into the Chepauk pitch and keeps offering width. Gurbaz disdainfully thrashes him for two more fours in similar fashion in his first over.

Rauf had started with a short, wide loosener in his previous game as well, against Australia. David Warner made that ball disappear beyond backward point and then launched one onto the roof of the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Rauf leaked 59 runs in his first four overs that day, leaving Babar Azam scrambling for answers.

At this World Cup, Rauf doesn’t have Naseem Shah to feed off from the other end. Shaheen Shah Afridi, the spearhead of the attack, is also searching for rhythm. The spinners have lacked penetration too. Rauf’s form – or the lack thereof – is part of a bigger problem for Pakistan.

“Sometimes, you know, when you’re a batter or a bowler, sometimes you go through these stages, everyone goes through these stages who played this professional sport,” Shadab Khan said on the eve of Pakistan’s game against South Africa. “So they go through these stages, but the main concern is like everyone is going [for runs] at the same time. That’s a problem we are having… because if someone is in good form, then [we] might be in a better position. But we are struggling as a unit. And at the same time, that’s a problem we are having [sic]. So hopefully it’s changed tomorrow, and everyone starts on their right track. So hopefully we’re starting from tomorrow.”

With Afridi not finding the kind of prodigious swing that he is famous for, Pakistan have needed Rauf to operate in the powerplay. Except, Rauf isn’t a swing bowler and hasn’t had enough control over his lines and lengths to bowl in the first ten overs, with just two men outside the circle, on his first tour of India. In this tournament, Rauf has bowled six overs in the powerplay while giving up 66 runs without taking a wicket. His economy rate of 11 is the worst among all bowlers who have bowled at least six overs during this phase.

The margin for error, especially with the new ball, is also very small on these Indian pitches, which often allow batters to hit through the line, something that Pakistan bowling coach Morne Morkel alluded to after the game against Australia.

“This venue [Chinnaswamy] is famous for a boundary festival,” Morkel had said. “I think upfront we leaked a little bit of soft boundaries and we gave width. One of our key discussion points is to keep the stumps in play and keep on hitting the deck. We know in India, any bit of width you can throw your hands through the line and that’s an area we’ve sort of discussed.

“If they force some good shots, we can live with that. As a bowler, you’ve got six balls, [and] the batsman can make one mistake. So, you need to hunt for that one mistake. I felt today we couldn’t string enough balls on the stumps. That’s an improvement we need to make in the World Cup because those are the small margins – they’re going to hit your good balls for four. We’ve got to eliminate our bad balls and bowl a less percentage of those, especially upfront.”

Rauf is more familiar with bowling in the middle overs and had, in fact, bossed that phase in 2023. Until the start of this World Cup, he was the top wicket-taker between overs 11 and 40, with 12 strikes in 13 innings at an economy rate of 5.55. But, even that strength has deserted him in this tournament, managing just two wickets in five innings during this phase while conceding almost seven an over.

At Chepauk on Monday, Afghanistan’s batters used Rauf’s pace to their advantage and peppered the square boundaries, which is somewhat shorter than the straight ones. Rauf kept banging the ball into a black-soil surface that was more conductive to spin than seam. He didn’t have a Plan B. The challenge for Rauf and Co will only get stiffer against South Africa’s explosive middle order. But the conditions could actually be in their favour on Friday.

The track that was used for the Bangladesh vs New Zealand game – the quickest one in Chennai, which is a bit of a throwback to the venue’s old days – is set to be reused for this game. Can Rauf let it rip like Lockie Ferguson did the other day and revive his own flagging form as well as Pakistan’s campaign?