For a team who have so often played their cricket by the seat of their pants, high‑wire artists without a safety net, the performance of Pakistan in the third Test has been a contrast. Prefaced by a shrewd change in personnel, which brought personal rewards for the two individuals concerned, their strategy has largely been spot on.
Opting to field first against England may have seemed a gamble but was based on considerable precedent, whereupon they bowled with discipline and caught swallows. Nor, until the last five wickets fell for 42, did the batsmen let down the bowlers. By tea on the third day, with the fall of their final wicket, they had taken the score to a round 400, and a lead over England of 103 – not quite enough to be decisive but sufficient to cause some jitters.
The final session of play would go some way towards defining the ultimate destiny of the match. Quick and significant inroads for Pakistan and the game would be there for the winning. Should England, on the other hand, eliminate the deficit without too much damage, then the game would very much be alive. If there was some apprehension in the England camp, it was not apparent in their approach to the second innings. Alastair Cook has looked in such prime form it is hard to comprehend it is not so long ago that batting was such a struggle.
For the first part of England’s opening partnership he dominated the scoring so that Alex Hales was positively pedestrian by comparison, as if their cricketing persona had somehow been swapped. Hales though has attempted to construct his Test innings from the base up rather than going full bore as some believed he might, and after a watchful start, understandable given the precarious state of his Test career, he began to play more expansively, timing the ball nicely, and, through the simple expedient of surviving the new ball long enough, facing Yasir Shah for the first time this summer.
The pair were never troubled, and by the close were still together, their unbroken partnership of 120 having wiped the deficit and gained a slender 17‑run lead, with Cook on 64 and Hales reaching 50 from the last ball of the day. It is the first century stand by the two in 18 attempts, the first by England openers since Cook and Moeen Ali put on 116 against the same opponents in Abu Dhabi last year, and the first in the second innings since Cook and Nick Compton in Dunedin in March 2013.
The opportunity is there for Hales to really cash in and cement his future. The match meanwhile is back to evens – a one‑innings contest effectively – although it will be Pakistan who have to bat last on what England hope will be an increasingly capricious pitch. There were no signs of that yet.
The previous day had been one of frustration for the England bowlers, bookended at one end by a wicket with the fourth ball, at the other by the big one of Azhar Ali with the last, and only a run-out in between. Azhar’s wicket, with the new ball only 10 overs old, was important for it meant an early opportunity to get at Misbah-ul-Haq in particular, his reticence against pace at contrast to his exuberance against spin. It was half an hour before a breakthrough came, although it was Younis Khan who feathered a leg glance off Chris Woakes for Jonny Bairstow to take the catch.
There was a little gentle swing for Jimmy Anderson in particular, although not as late as he would like, countered by Misbah who appears to see the ball very early and play it so late it appears he might forget to put bat to ball altogether. He did lose Asad Shafiq, who having played 17 deliveries without scoring found his off stump flattened by Stuart Broad from the 18th. At this stage, more than an hour into the day, Pakistan were still a run behind England and the game was poised.
Now though Misbah was joined by Sarfraz Ahmed, a tenacious scrapper, who added 62 for the sixth wicket before the Pakistan captain, having just reached an excellent half-century by driving Anderson to the square boundary, played the same bowler even later than usual, angled the ball down into the crease and on to his stumps. It presaged an eventful half an hour or so, padded out with DRS reviews, a controversial run-out, and England’s leading bowler being removed from the attack for the rest of the innings.
First Yasir was given out lbw to Anderson, only for the decision to be overturned on review. Then, two balls later, Yasir, attempting to scamper a second to Woakes at long leg, was run out. The fielder’s one-handed pickup and throw on the run was gathered by Bairstow in front of the stumps, from which position he knocked off the bails with his elbow, permissable under the laws of the game, and a perfect illustration of how taking the ball early can make a crucial difference: if the keeper had been behind the stumps, in the manner of old, the batsman would have survived. When Mohammad Amir was lbw to Woakes in the following over, three wickets had gone for 10 runs.
At this point, Anderson was removed from the attack for a third transgression into the “danger” zone on his follow-through. With two warnings already, to even flirt with the possibility of encroaching again was simply careless. He will be able to open the bowling in the second innings. Sarfraz, meanwhile, was busily dragging Pakistan towards 400, nursing the tail as best he could and finishing unbeaten on 46, with Broad claiming two bonus wickets to end the innings.
