Pakistan has just finished achieving one of their best cricketing achievements this decade – and perhaps the only one this year: at rock bottom after being handed a monumental innings defeat by England in the first Test in Multan, they have bounced back to snatch the series right out of the visitors’ hands. There are things to be said about how Sajid and Noman materialized on the scene to spin England out of all the glory they amassed in the first Test, fortified by record after broken record. There are things to be said about surprise exclusions and how you could shake any random box out in Pakistan, and a selection committee would fall out.

Ultimately, though, there are things to be said about the pitches.

There have been roads, and there have been turners. There have been fans and heaters and rollers. Most recently and most historically, there has been Aqib Javed, the man who made Pindi spin. Pakistan seems to finally have figured out what conditions actually give them a home advantage at home – something that has been eluding us for quite a few years now. This came as a result of no lack of antics – reusing a 5-day-old pitch in Multan for the second Test and baking a usually dead, flat Pindi pitch with heaters and industrial fans to make it turn. Other equipment included selection committee members Aqib Javed and former umpire Aleem Dar, who reportedly rolled their arms over on the pitch to assess its situation. What we are watching here, then, is an instance of madness being the method itself. And who are we to judge if it works?

Inspired by the ingenuity and creativity of my countrymen in making the home Test season in Pakistan great again, here are some other ideas as to how we can make win-conducive Test pitches in Pakistan. Just for future reference.

1. PCB to schedule all of the Champions’ Cup on the pitch before each Test match – the second Test in Multan was successful because it had received the battering of a lifetime – first in Pakistan’s modest first innings score of 556, and then in England’s meager production of 800 runs. By the time the first ball of the second Test was bowled – not before half of Pakistan’s side was dropped and half of a new management was appointed – the pitch had opened and cracked like a sidewalk in Karachi. If using a pitch is what makes it even more usable, then I would suggest that Pakistan inserts a domestic cricket season on the pitch that is to be used every time before an international match is to be played on that pitch. Not only will this allow the pitch to reach a suitable level of ruggedness, but it is also easily achievable, as the domestic structure changes every three weeks.
2. Babar Azam to keep his Panther Tyres sponsorship, so that we have an array of bikes and funky tyres at our disposal to rev across the length and breadth of the playing patch. Babar may have been unceremoniously dropped due to a dip in form, and I may not have the best understanding of how sponsorships work, but I think if we have a few dirt bikes to really plant grooves into the surface, it might take us one step closer to becoming the spin-friendly monsters we want to be.
3. Aqib Javed to rejoin Lahore Qalandar, and do PDP bowling trials on the surface. It is time we take this AqibBall thing more seriously.
4. Take Ramiz Raja’s advice on how to make juicy, win-conducive, and result-oriented pitches. (This will not be hard, as no one will have to pay him. Chances are, said advice will roll in unsolicited, either from the Comms box or from Twitter.) Then, do the exact opposite.
5. Set up a mini-golf course for the England cricket team. They will take to it like a duck to water. Even better if there are a residual two days left after a Test match that ended too early.
6. Try more household appliances – why should one stop at industrial fans? Use the surface as an ironing board for the players’ jerseys. Let them get haircuts on it, and let the air from the hairdryers warm the surface. Try getting annoying teenage boys to run their lit lighters across it for no reason.

The world is our oyster, and all of us have a pitch curator inside us, itching to come out.