England v Pakistan
1st
Test
Day 2: Something
Odd is Happening at Lord’s
July 16th 2016
The script
for this match said that no side has taken 20 wickets on a dead Lord’s surface
all season. The surface looked a good one for batting and Pakistan’s efforts
yesterday seemed to suggest that a first innings score of around 450 would be
par.
In other
words, accept a rather boring draw and move on to Old Trafford.
Barring the
intervention of the weather, or of Alistair Cook, who is courting a one match
ban for a slow over-rate, managing to slow the England over rate still further to
a level that the 1980s West Indians would have envied, there will be a result, quite
probably on the fourth day.
From 282-4
late on the first day, 13 wickets have fallen for the addition of 310 runs.
First Pakistan and then England have made batting look high risk. The fact that
there has also been some pretty poor bowling at times makes the clatter of
wickets even harder to understand. It is the sort of situation that would make Marvin the Paranoid Android of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" complain "Oh dear! Reality is on the blink again!"
Right now,
there are two differences between the side: the first is that Misbah-ul-Huq has
been the only player able to make a major score (Misbah’s 114 trumped Cook’s
81) and the second is that Yasir Shah has sown seeds of doubt where only
certainty should have existed. Although Chris Woakes’s 6-70 is better on paper,
Shah’s 5-64 has turned the game.
What possessed
Joe Root to take a wild swing and sky a catch when he and Cook had put on 110
and were making batting look easy, we do not know. Up until then the Pakistan bowling
was poor and, when the bowlers did induce a mistake, the fielding was worse.
Once Root had committed hari-kiri when a major score was there for the taking,
Yasir Shah decided that his best course was not to rely on his fielders: three
LBWs and Jonny Bairstow bowled. Mohammad Amir took his cue from Yasir Shah and
removed Cook bowled off the inside edge: when you cannot rely on your
wicket-keeper or fielders to catch anything, bowleds and LBWs are the best
recourse.
It should
not have been this way. In eleven overs and four balls Pakistan had gone from a
commanding 282-4 to a scarcely credible 316-9. Thoughts of 450 evaporated like
referendum pledges, although Pakistan’s last wicket pair were still able to add
what may ultimately be a match-winning 23 runs.
When England
batted, all the doubts returned. Alex Hales’s leaden feet were more the Hales
of the South African Tests than the swashbuckling warrior who battered Sri
Lanka. Vince came, had Michael Vaughan purring at his artistry and went, once
again, when looking set: 70 runs in 5 innings have convinced no one that he is
the batsman that England need. Gary Balance got a superb ball, but all the talk
will be of how his failure proves that the selectors were wrong to bring him
back. And Moeen Ali, who owed England some runs, looked awfully unlucky to fall
with umpire’s call on point of impact and on hitting the stumps, plus a spike
on Snicko that the TV umpire thought was caused possibly by his spikes scraping
the ground just at the moment that ball passed bat. Lest we forget, Jake Ball
was pretty fortunate to get Azhar Ali yesterday so, as usual, these things have
evened-up.
Each time a
batsman seemed to be getting things under control, a wicket fell. The upshot is
that, with Chris Woakes playing calmly and Stuart Broad hanging on, England are
86 behind on a pitch expected to favour the bowlers in the fourth innings and
desperately need to reach parity tomorrow morning. If they are to do it, Chris
Woakes will almost certainly have to surpass his best Test score by some
distance and Stuart Broad will need to stay with him for at least an hour in
the morning: it looks unlikely right now. At very worst, England need to reach
300 to feel that they are still in the game.
Right now,
you have to feel that this game is Pakistan’s match to lose. By the end of the
3rd Day we may well be seeing the end-game approach.
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