Just after 3:30PM today Mohammad Abbas, a true bunny with the bat, miscued a drive against Jofra Archer and Dan Lawrence took the catch. That meant that England had won the first match of Joe Root’s second term as test captain by an innings and 103 runs. This post looks back at a match that was propelled as far as day three only by the weather.
THE FIRST INNINGS
Joe Root won the toss and put Pakistan in to bat. Salman Agha, standing in as captain due the absence of the injured Babar Azam, perpetrated the classic and pathetic toss loser’s ploy of saying he would have batted first anyway (particularly unimpressive since his rival skipper probably knows as much about conditions at Headingley as anyone currently playing the game). Pakistan lost two wickets almost before the match had started, but Imam-ul-Haq and Abdullah Shafique had a good partnership for the third wicket, the first and only time of the match when Pakistan looked decent. Imam-ul-Haq was out with the score at 97, which brought Saud Shakeel, who has a fine test record but has never yet batted convincingly outside Asia. He never really got going, and his dismissal for a tortured 5, followed closely by that of Shafique for 61 heralded a horrendous collapse, which saw a high water mark of 117-3 turn into 171 all out. Josh Tongue had 5-46 from 9.1 overs, and Ollie Robinson 5-51 from 18 overs.
THE ENGLAND INNINGS
Neither England opener particularly distinguished themselves, though Emilio Gay played nicely for his 33 until his dismissal which was a shocker. Jordan Cox and Joe Root batted well and took England to the close of day one still only two down, and not very far short of a first innings lead. Their efforts were followed on day two by fine innings from Harry Brook, who, while still scoring fast (almost a run a ball), was not at any stage guilty of the kind of craziness that has too often marred his efforts of late, and Dan Lawrence, who showed that, given the opportunity to bat in the middle of the order as he does at county level, he is capable of producing the goods at a higher level. Pakistan had plenty to worry about, with their seam attack looking toothless and their fielding being frankly slipshod. I did not keep count of the number of times that a Pakistan fielder effectively escorted the ball to the boundary rather than actually chasing it but it was substantial. The only bright spot for them was left arm spinner Ali Usman who took 5-95, but even he bowled rather too many bad balls alongside the good ones – only one of the 24 overs he bowled in the innings was a maiden. Yorkshire at one time had a production line of left arm spinners, with the county producing over the years Edmund Peate, Bobby Peel, Wilfred Rhodes, Alonzo Drake, Roy Kilner, Hedley Verity and Johnny Wardle (of the seven players listed only Drake, baulked by a combination of the outbreak of WWI and poor health – he took 85 first class wickets in the last two months of the 1914 season and was dead from a weak heart by the time cricket resumed in 1919 – did not play for England). England ended up with a score of 409, a first innings lead of 238.
THE PAKISTAN SECOND INNINGS
By lunch on day three (today) Pakistan were 59-3, needing 179 more to avoid an innings defeat. That soon became 76-6, with Tongue adding the scalps of Shan Masood, Saud Shakeel (14 this time round) and Salman Agha to his five first innings victims. The rest of the innings boiled down to tail enders attempting to stay with Mohammad Rizwan while the Pakistan keeper did most of the scoring. Rizwan had scored 41 and batted reasonably impressively when Gus Atkinson bowled him, which made the score 131-9. Mohammad Abbas, whose position at number 10 is devastatingly revealing of the batting (in)capacities of his team mate Mohammad Ali, the number 11, hit one four before suffering the dismissal referred to in the introduction. Pakistan in their second innings had survived only 37.3 overs, and had batted only 85.4 overs in the match. England’s sole innings occupied 89.5 overs. These details mean that but for the rain that interrupted both the first two days there would not even have been a day three.
PHOTOGRAPHS
I start my usual sign off with a composite picture…
Now for the image gallery…
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