The third and final test match of the series between Pakistan and England got underway in Rawalpindi yesterday morning. This post looks at the events of the first two days.
THE PRELIMINARIES
England had called up Rehan Ahmed and with Carse having problems with a foot injury Atkinson replaced him in the XI. This meant three front line spinners (Leach, Bashir and Ahmed) and only Atkinson as a specialist pacer, with skipper Stokes second option in that department. Pakistan were unchanged. The pitch had had giant fans blowing on it to dry it out more for the spinners. England won the toss and chose to bat.
THE FIRST DAY
Duckett batted well and reached a fine 50 before getting out. The rest of the top six did little worthy of mention, and at 118-6 England looked in deep trouble. However, Atkinson batted well in support of Smith who batted very impressively, and by the time I left to catch the bus to work the score had risen to 158-6. I was to find out later that the England recovery continued, and they got to 267 all out, before reducing Pakistan to 73-3 by the close of day one.
DAY TWO
England had a good morning, and at one stage Pakistan were 177-7. That score had increased by 10 when lunch came at 8:30 UK time (session times on Fridays in Pakistan are different from on other days – the morning session is extended, then the lunch break lasts an hour to incorporate time for Friday prayers, and the afternoon and evening sessions are a little shorter). The afternoon session was the first of two where the match appeared to swing decisively. England captured only wicket in that session, and Pakistan, withNoman Ali attacking, and Saud Shakeel accumulating sensibly and without fuss against field settings that were designed to prevent boundaries but as a consequence allowed him to score ones and twos more or less at will, scored 90 runs, levelling the scores. The evening session began with a period of absolute carnage, as Sajid Khan, the number 10, laid about him in spectacular fashion. The lead raced past 50 in the sixth over after the interval. The scoring reined in after that, but runs continued to accrue. Finally, with the lead standing at 70, Atkinson induced a miscue from Shakeel whose magnificent innings of 134 (223 balls, just five fours and thus a lot of running) came to an end with a tame catch to sub fielder Matt Potts. Seven further runs accrued before Sajid Khan exposed number 11 Zahid Mahmood to the wiles of Rehan Ahmed. One ball from leg spinner to leg spinner was sufficient to end the innings, Zahid failing to pick the googly and being bowled. Rehan Ahmed had 4-66 for the innings, Shoaib Bashir, chief victim of the post tea onslaught, had 3-129, but the real disappointment among the England spinners was Leach, more experienced than the other two combined, who on a surface that was offering assistance had 1-105 from 31 overs. Atkinson, on a surface on which he should have been a non-factor, had 2-22 from 12 overs.
England lost both openers to LBWs , one to Noman Ali and one to Sajid Khan. With the score 20, Pope who had amassed a single, gave a catch to Salman Agha off Noman Ali. Root and Brook joined forces, and had added four runs when the umpires decided that the floodlights were now dominating the natural light and took the players off, ending play for the day, with England 53 runs behind Pakistan and having seven second innings wickets standing. Failure to finish off opposition innings is becoming a recurrent problem for this England side, and the batting of the top three in the second innings was disastrous. They should have learned by this stage that playing back foot strokes against spinners on this surface is a recipe for disaster, but both openers perished essaying exactly such shots.
PHOTOGRAPHS
My usual sign off…
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