Babar Azam will face tougher decisions, you would say. Calling correctly at a toss delayed by dark and rainy skies above Lord’s on the opening day of the second Test, Pakistan’s returning captain did not hesitate.We’ll have a bowl.In some ways, it was still a brave decision.Eight of the previous 10 Test skippers to win the toss at Lord’s have stuck the opposition in, but none of those arrived off the back of quite so chastening a performance as Pakistan endured in the first Test last week. The underlying numbers may have been more encouraging than the scorecard, but the visiting attack took heavy criticism after Headingley.At Lord’s, they had to deliver. Quickly.It did not take long to vindicate Babar’s call. Within an hour, Mohammad Abbas had accounted for three of England’s top four, reversed the momentum of the series, and put Pakistan firmly in the driving seat of a match they desperately need to win.Emilio Gay was the first to go, strangled down the legside, but Ben Duckett was bang to rights, plumb in front to a ball jagging back viciously off the seam and aided by the slope. That brought England’s captain to the crease in typically trying circumstances for a brief but compelling contest, and a perfect demonstration of the challenges facing a bowler of Abbas’ talent.Lord’s is an historic venue, and across the 150 years it has hosted Test cricket, there have been many magical spells of bowling.However, ball-tracking data is only available from 2006 onwards. In that time, there have only been two sessions at the north London ground that have seen more seam movement than the first two hours of this match.These were seriously tough conditions for batting, and Pakistan are blessed with a bowler absurdly well-suited to harnessing them — perhaps more so than anyone in the world.To counter the sideways movement, and safe from the short-ball response that quicker bowlers may have up their sleeve, Joe Root had been setting up down the track to Abbas. His interception point has been almost three metres away from his stumps — that is, at least, when the wicketkeeper is back.As soon as Mohammad Rizwan came up, Root was forced to move back in his crease, intercepting the ball over a metre deeper in the crease. That metre was crucial in allowing the ball’s deviation to take it past Root’s defences, crashing into his pad and costing him his wicket. Punch, counter-punch, knockout.At that point, England were 36-3, and while they managed to put up a solid 248-9 by the end of the day, Abbas’ tone-setting intervention had done its job.The sense of insipid, passive defeatism that came off Pakistan’s performance in Leeds was gone. It may have been the fourth day of the series, but they had finally turned up.According to the tracking data, this was the second most accurate an attack has ever been at the outset of a Lord’s Test, only narrowly beaten by New Zealand’s effort earlier this summer. An indication of the ongoing issues with the Lord’s surface? Undoubtedly. A remarkable attack-wide recovery in rhythm from the first Test? Without question.The fact that it was Abbas who inspired this turnaround should not come as a surprise.The 36-year-old has spent the better part of 10 years honing his craft in this country, turning out for Hampshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and, most recently, Derbyshire, developing a relationship with the Dukes ball that is matched by very few others. County cricket gets a hard time for being too dominated by medium-pace bowlers — the criticism even comes from its own managing director — but when performed by someone as accurate, as artistic, as Abbas, one of the game’s more maligned skills is just as watchable as any other.The dismissal of Duckett was Abbas’ 900th first-class wicket. Only three seamers — Stuart Broad, James Anderson and Tim Murtagh (the latter of Surrey, Middlesex and Ireland) — have more this century. These are the numbers, both in scale and the manner in which they have been achieved, of a man from a previous world. He is not of this time.Abbas’ Test dismissals“Stump to stump” is a bit of a faint-praise phrase when it comes to assessing seamers, but it is unavoidable here. Almost half of Abbas’ Test victims have fallen leg before wicket or bowled.Only a handful of seamers can boast a higher percentage, and they are largely bowlers who rely on express pace (Shoaib Akhtar), extravagant movement (Wasim Akram) or both (Jasprit Bumrah).The only man in a similar mould around him on that list is Terry Alderman, the infamously accurate Australian who decimated England in the 1981 and, more spectacularly still, 1989 Ashes series. Over the course of that summer 37 years ago, through six Tests and a luxurious 10 tour matches, Alderman took 76 wickets at an average a touch under 17.In the course of one series, he notched up six Tests. Abbas, on his third visit to England for a Test series, is just about into his seventh.For that, the schedule has much to answer, but it is reflective of a wider attitude towards Abbas from team management. In short, Pakistan still seem suspicious of him. By bowling average alone — Abbas takes his wickets in this format at 22.56 — he is their best seam bowler in history, and yet he has made just 32 appearances over almost a decade. At times, he has gone years between caps.Institutionally in Pakistani cricket, there is a disbelief that a bowler can be successful in varied conditions operating at the speed Abbas puts out. As recently as last month, he was dropped amid concerns around his pace. There are limitations to what seamers operating in the 77mph zone can do in certain circumstances, but the lack of appreciation for a bowler with Abbas’ record beggars belief.There is an Urdu phrase that sums up the entire debate: “Pace is pace, yaah.” Tortological but deeply revealing of a nation’s feelings about the game, it basically means bowl fast and not a lot else matters.Another masterpiece of a spell ripping out an entire top order; 902 red-ball poles; a few more summers ruining the lives of county batters; an average speed of 77mph.Pace is pace? Nah.Data and visualisations provided by CricViz