Mumtaz believes the sudden disappearance of Pakistan’s pace threat has a lot to do with domestic pitch conditions. “There’s obviously a problem with the pitches that we prepare back home. One of the examples of that was England touring Pakistan both times around,” she told Sky Sports.

“Now, I think there’s also a lot of haze in understanding where Pakistan’s strength lies now, or has been in the last five years. For me, it is very hard to believe to say that Pakistan’s quick bowling is not the strength. It has always been the strength,” she said.

Mumtaz spoke on how batting-friendly conditions, particularly during Babar’s time as captain, contributed to the decline.

“We’ve gone so far away from it because our batters, especially when Babar was captain, wanted flatter tracks, wanted the batsmen to dominate the way things ran more. Even in first-class cricket, grass was taken off. So, you were almost putting the fast bowlers up against the wall, giving them zero assistance in first-class cricket, and providing a lot of batters to score runs without any test, really. And that’s where I feel they’ve just fallen off the boil,” she said.

“Shaheen Shah Afridi broke onto the scene; everyone thought he was the next best thing. After the injury, he fell off. Naseem Shah is nowhere to be found. Haris Rauf is not bowling as quickly, or doesn’t have the capacity to bowl as quickly for long periods of time. There are a few bowlers – Ali Raza, 17 years old – but they’re few and far between in terms of pace. And I think it has to do with what we’ve done at the international and domestic level, providing zero assistance to quick bowlers, moving away from that, and going a lot into all-rounders,” she added.

Babar was recently reinstated as Pakistan’s Test captain after Shan Masood was sacked from his role.