This day was called the Feast of Crispian. Six hundred years ago to the day England fought and won a battle against what, as Shakespeare had it, the Earl of Salisbury called “a fearful odds”. Those odds facing the England cricket team on the fourth day of the second Test could scarcely be described as fearful but they were mighty long for all that. Pakistan were in the driving seat and it would have required more than Alastair Cook’s version of the greatest team talk in the English language, delivered before Agincourt (and embellished by the Bard, of course), to lift his side into staving off what appeared an inevitable defeat, band of brothers or not.
By the end of the day there was still a vague chance that they could avoid defeat and go into the third Test on level terms but it will now require an effort of monumental concentration and skill of a kind shown by Cook in the first Test if they are to survive a full day’s play.
Pakistan had taken their second innings to 354 for six before declaring mid-afternoon, leaving England 491 to win but, more realistically, 144 overs to survive. They will certainly be doing it without Cook now, who was hobbling in the field and towards the end of the marathon stint out there had taken to standing at slip, a position he had abandoned since splitting the webbing on his hand.
He opened the batting as usual and did not look particularly uncomfortable except when called for a quick single – as did Ian Bell when he first came to the crease – and was forced to gallop stiff-leggedly; Kevin Pietersen would have had him in traction. Cook was out soon after, well caught by Wahab Riaz, placed a few yards in from the boundary at deep backward square leg, as he swept the leg-spin of Yasir Shah. The word from the dressing room suggested there was no problem with him but it certainly did not look that way as he hobbled and went through stretching exercises. At least he will be spared the last day and the final Test does not start until next Sunday so, if there is a niggle, he has some recovery time. This is Cook’s 119th successive Test since he missed a game through illness in his first series and only Allan Border, with an astounding 153 matches, has played more without a break.
Unlikely as any England survival would be, requiring a longer rearguard than the famous match at The Wanderers in 1995, or Cape Town in 2010, the condition of the pitch has not deteriorated particularly in the last two days and is not offering, at least not yet, the sort of extravagant minefield of spin that had been expected at the start of the match.
Certainly it remained good enough for Younis Khan to register his 31st Test match hundred and for Asad Shafiq to emphasise further his credentials as an extremely good, beautifully balanced batsman with 79 before the declaration came with his dismissal.
With Cook gone, and Moeen Ali too, for one, his second failure of the match, it was the remaining experienced batsmen, Bell and Joe Root, who offered resistance.
In the first England innings of the first Test Cook and Moeen added 116 for the first wicket, hinting that what is currently an expedient partnership not destined for the long term might prove a success. Moeen’s hundred against Sri Lanka, in which he batted through an entire day, shows he has the capacity to play a long innings but this time he trusted his eye outside off stump, driving where discretion would have been more appropriate, and was caught at second slip.
There are times when even the manner in which a batsman shapes up and plays his first delivery can be a pointer to how his innings might go. Bell, abject in the first innings, had practised with real intensity before play and his first ball, from Imran Khan, was met with a positive stride and the very middle of the bat. He looked in touch and with Root, who rarely looks out of nick these days, added 102 for the third wicket before he succumbed to what can only be called a failure of concentration. When a left-arm spinner is bowling over the wicket into the rough, lbw is taken out of the equation and, if the ball is spitting, the only danger comes from it taking bat or glove. Bell thrust his pad out but did not tuck his bat far enough out of harm’s way, so that the ball spun past his body and just clipped his glove on the way through to the keeper, although it took a replay to confirm it. The manner in which he played, if not the end, ought to be enough to secure his place in Sharjah but it is a close-run thing.
Bell made 46. Root, though, has played flawlessly for three hours for his unbeaten 59 and Jonny Bairstow stayed with him for the last 30 minutes as England reached 130 for three.
England had spent the morning and first part of the afternoon attempting to hold off the inevitable. The England seamers have been outstanding in the game, difficult to get away, with Pakistan content to play them out and score from the spinners instead.
There was instant success for Jimmy Anderson, mixing things up, his slow off‑cutter early on so deceiving Misbah-ul-Haq that he slapped a catch straight to mid-off without adding to his overnight 87 to end a fourth-wicket stand of 141; in the first innings he had similarly failed to add to his overnight 102.
But Younis, 71 at the start of play, was not to be denied his century. For some reason his name often gets overlooked when talk turns to the finest modern batsmen but he has scored runs around the world, more than 9,000 now, averaging 59.31 at home, 55.73 on neutral grounds and 51.95 away. Only when the declaration was imminent and he started to throw the bat did England look like dismissing him and then it was a massive skyer that Moeen, running round from long-on, did well to take.
