Key events
25th over: Pakistan 76-3 (Shan 18, Saud 17) The one advantage of batting second on a wearing pitch is that you can learn from the opposition’s first innings. England lost five wickets before they twigged that the sweep is a high-risk shot on such a slow, low pitch, and since then the batters on both sides have generally played with a straight bat.
Jack Leach’s first over is a quiet, exploratory affair; two singles from it.
24th over: Pakistan 74-3 (Shan 17, Saud 16) A lovely start from Bashir, whose first ball curves onto middle stump and straightens sharply. Shan does pretty well to drop a thick edge just short of Pope, who is very close and under the helmet at gully.
Shan gets another thick edge later in the over, this time all along the ground. He’s definitely a candidate for an edge playing against the spin.
The players are ready for action in Rawalpindi. In other news, Virat Kohli has just been bowled by a full toss and India are in a bit of bother against New Zealand in Pune. If New Zealand win the second Test they’ll become the first team to win a series in India since England 12 years ago.
Here, have you heard this? It might just be one of the greatest debut singles in the history of forever.
“As you ease yourself into the new day, an interesting innings by Western Australia has just unfolded in the Australian one-day competition,” says Phil Withall. “Somehow they managed to lose eight wickets for one run, being bowled out for just 53. Spectacular achievement I’m sure you’ll agree…”
Amazing! I completely missed that. It reminds me a little bit of that astonishing Surrey collapse against Lancashire in 1993, which in some ways was even worse because they were so close to victory.
Read Ali Martin on Adam Gilchr Jamie Smith
Over the course of his sparkling 89 he once again showed the class and composure that marks him out as a player of considerable promise. Victim to a couple of rash yahoos in the second Test, Smith was content to first take a look, soaking up 32 balls for nine runs and playing chiefly with a straight bat. Unlike a couple of colleagues higher up, the 24-year-old appeared to trust his defence.
Scorecard aficionados, this one’s for you
Read Simon Burnton’s report on day one
From the sport that once brought you leg theory, this was more like chaos theory. Before this week nobody knew what you would get if you spent the buildup to a game roasting the pitch in a makeshift fan oven. It turns out the answer is wickets, 13 of them falling on an opening day of drama and frequent befuddlement.
Preamble
This is the day, folks. By 1pm BST/5pm PKT we should have a strong idea who is going to win this intriguing series. For now it remains too close to call with any certainty. Pakistan will resume on 73 for 3, a deficit of 194 on a pitch that has had all the bounce and pace baked out of it.
The case for England is that they have runs on the board on a pitch that could go at any moment; the case for Pakistan is that, in England’s first innings, batting became less uncomfortable after around 35 overs as the ball started to age. Pakistan’s innings is 23 overs old, which means only one thing: Big First Hour coming up. Really big.
