Gripping stuff that opening session. Literally. After a quiet first hour the ball has started to turn, like that used Multan pitch on day eight or even nine.
Who is winning on this Bunsen burner/raging turner which it has already become? England have got some runs on the board, 110 for five wickets, but some of England’s batsmen have been so artless that they are letting Pakistan take the upper hand.
Pakistan’s coach Jason Gillespie said that his message to his new players had principally been to “stay calm in the moment” – and this is what they have done so far. England went ahead of the game as their opening stand of Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley put on 56 when the ball was turning only slowly. Pakistan’s captain Shan Masood could have panicked but he stuck with his two finger-spinners, Sajid Khan and Noman Ali, and they rewarded him royally through the rest of the morning.
It was not the sweep which got England into trouble, or the reverse-sweep, but artlessness. Had they been playing in the days of uncovered pitches, before 1980, they would have been more equipped for this parched and pale pitch which is likely to be condemned by the match officials and ICC, but not soon enough to affect this outcome.
Ben Duckett played less than a handful of sweeps or reverse-sweeps: he preferred to go down the pitch and loft the spinners straight. He was blameless in his dismissal for 51. A ball from the left-arm spinner Noman Ali not only turned in to him but shot or scuttled to pin him on the shin. No need to waste a review.
Of the other dismissals, yes, too many were artless. Noman, a classic slow left-armer, wanted righthanders to drive into the covers, and that is exactly what Zak Crawley tried to do, edging to backward point. Ollie Pope almost went the same way before missing a sweep against an offbreak and wasting a review.
Joe Root was pinned LBW on the back foot. Sajid Khan is the ideal bowler for this sort of pitch, driving the ball into this dodgy surface. Root was not prepared for so much turn or so much quick turn – and again there was no need to waste a review.
Harry Brook was bowled behind his legs by an offbreak, which is not a way of selling your wicket dearly. It has been a come-down since his treble-hundred in the opening game.
England desperately need a partnership. Anything over 200 on this pitch would give them control of this match; anything below 150 and Pakistan will be on top. Ben Stokes was elated on winning the toss, after England had lost it in their last seven Tests, but without a partnership this luck is likely to be wasted.
Source: telegraph.co.uk