Pakistan have taken control of the second Test. As well as the England bowlers performed on the second day to halt the hosts’ innings in its tracks, Pakistan’s own bowlers were starting to exert pressure of their own in a manner redolent to an extent of England’s last tour here.
Replying to Pakistan’s 378, a brace of early wickets had set England’s reply back before a third-wicket stand of 113 between Alastair Cook and Joe Root restored a balance. In the final session, though, the leg-spinner Yasir Shah, much-hyped but missing from the first Test because of injury, claimed the most valuable wicket of Cook for 65, taken at leg slip.
Whether England, 182 for three and still 196 behind on first innings, can get back into this match will now depend on how the middle and late order can cope with the bowling. There is already a little zip from the pitch for Yasir and the left-arm spinner Zulfiqar Babar, as well as some reverse swing for the pacemen, led by Wahab Riaz, who once more got his pace up to 90 miles per hour and beyond.
The remainder of the England batting may have an attacking, free-scoring look to it, but it remains suspect when there is no pace on the ball and fielders are crouched noisily round the bat for the spinners.
The first sight of Yasir was instructive. He is not tall, so is more prone to skid the ball on and attacks the crease hard with a considerable jump as if a medium pacer. Before the Test he had offered the opinion that in Pakistan’s first innings in Abu Dhabi, Adil Rashid did not bowl with sufficient pace to trouble the batsmen, and here Yasir, at around 55 miles per hour, was 10% quicker and consequently harder to get at. If he can bowl at that pace when the pitch really starts to bite, and retain control, then it is easy to see how he has gained the remarkable success he has.
It was the worst of starts to the England innings which began immediately after the extended lunch interval. Moeen Ali may count himself unfortunate in the same way as might Shoaib Malik in the Pakistan innings, in that he played a ball from Wahab square of the wicket from the middle of the bat, only to be caught at short leg. But Ian Bell had no such excuse. Here we have a batsman struggling for his career now, each innings a trial in itself. Such were the nature of the two catches he dropped in the first Test that there were suggestions being made that his eyesight had become less sharp.
But it is also true that, when a batsman is out of form and loses confidence, then so keen can they be to try to get bat to ball that they find themselves playing at deliveries they might otherwise avoid. Bell’s 10th ball, from Imran Khan (doesn’t that still have a glorious ring to it?) was on a good length but wide-ish and of no particular threat until Bell lunged his bat out, the ball taking the edge and offering a simple catch to the keeper.
Soon, if not now, a decision will have to be made, for reputation and past service can carry only so far: 342 runs at 19.0 in 20 innings since his gritty century in Antigua does not offer a compelling argument to keep persisting with him.
Cook and Root, on the other hand, played with considerable comfort, with Cook altogether more proactive than he had been during his first Test marathon, and Root simply being his usual busy self. When the short ball was tried, Cook hooked and pulled, and twice the spinner was slog-swept over midwicket.
Twice Cook had some good fortune, the first occasion when the ball ran from his front pad as he attempted to sweep and rolled hard on to the stumps without dislodging a bail, and then later when a fast yorker was deflected from his inside edge perilously close to his leg stump. It appeared to be his day but a clever field had been set, anticipating the manner in which Cook works the ball off his hips: he duly did so and the substitute fielder Ahmed Shehzad snaffled a sharp low catch.
Root, meanwhile, had been playing with freedom and, after Cook’s departure, reached his own half century from 85 balls with five fours and will start the third day on 76, with Jonny Bairstow on 27, their fourth-wicket stand worth 55.
England had been exceptional in the morning, during which time they took the remaining six Pakistan wickets for a further 96 runs. It began with Stuart Broad, who pushed the overnight centurion Misbah-ul-Haq back on his stumps in his first over and then did for him with a full delivery. Misbah’s career may be of late a flowering success but he has a tendency not to push on once he reaches a hundred.
It opened the door a little and after Moeen had taken his 50th Test wicket in dismissing Sarfraz Ahmed for 32, he, together with Rashid and Mark Wood, were able to finish things off, Wood ending with 3 for 39 and Moeen 3 for 108. Curiously, Moeen becomes the 18th England spinner since the second world war to take 50 or more wickets, and has the best strike rate of them all. Against that, though, his economy rate of almost four runs per over is the only one that exceeds three. But, as the next on that second list is Graeme Swann, it perhaps tells as much about the times as the bowler.
