MULTAN, PAKISTAN - DECEMBER 10: Mohammad Rizwan of Pakistan is bowled by Jack Leach of England, as Ollie Pope of England celebrates during day two of the Second Test Match between Pakistan and England at Multan Cricket Stadium on December 10, 2022 in Multan, Pakistan. (Photo by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images)
England 281 (Duckett 63, Pope 60, Abrar 7-114) and 202 for 5 (Brook 73*, Stokes 15*) lead Pakistan 202 (Babar 75, Shakeel 63, Leach 4-98) by 281 runs
MULTAN: England leads the second test with an overall lead of 281 runs over Pakistan as second day of second test match came to an end.
What’s a team to do when its plans for dominance come to fruition too soon? After their toil for wickets in Rawalpindi, interspersed with manic bursts of batting that bought them time to turn the screw, England found themselves in the polar opposite scenario on the second day in Multan.
The day dawned with an eight-wicket surge in the morning session that was beyond their wildest dreams, and after that came two sessions of batting consolidation – or at least the closest thing that this high-octane line-up can muster, featuring a brace of even-tempo-ed half-centuries from Ben Duckett and Harry Brook, two wildly ill-judged run-outs from Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope, and a further burst of wickets for the mystery spinner Abrar Ahmed that took his debut tally to ten and counting.
The upshot was, that by the close of day two, England had the match – and the series – at their mercy on a surface that promises only to get more challenging as the contest unfolds. After bowling Pakistan out for 202 on the stroke of lunch, a lead of 79, England had extended their advantage to 281 with five wickets remaining by sunset, and with Brook unbeaten on 73 from 106, his third score of real substance of this breakthrough tour.
Overall England pressed along at a purposeful rate of 4.12 an over, faster than any of Pakistan’s three innings of the series to date, but their progress was still significantly more watchful than their first-day 281 had been. And yet, to judge by the early signs of England’s reply, such relative reticence perhaps hadn’t been the original gameplan for this second innings.
After Crawley had taken on Abrar’s arm at mid-on and lost – a fair sign of a team still in a hurry – Will Jacks strode out to bat at No. 3, a position in which he had never before batted in first-class cricket. Watching on from the Sky Sports studio, Stuart Broad speculated that “Lumberjacks” had been promoted to “chop down” the attack, but the ploy didn’t quite pay off. As Abrar entered the attack for the seventh over, he took his match tally to eight wickets with his sixth ball of the innings, as Jacks climbed into a slog-sweep and had his stumps rearranged.
At 25 for 2, England were in slight danger of throwing away their morning dominance, but Joe Root’s arrival at No. 4 signalled a reversion to more traditional tactics in spinning conditions – watchful strike rotation and calm partnership building, as he and Duckett carried their third-wicket stand to 54 from 80 balls.
After his tour de force in Sri Lanka and India two winters ago, Root’s fluency in spinning conditions is a fairly reliable gauge of the challenge of any given surface. And once again, he was not in total command of his brief in making 21 from 35 balls, even though it took a stunning piece of reaction fielding at short leg to prise him from the crease. Crouched beneath his helmet, Abdullah Shafique tracked Root’s positioning for a pre-meditated sweep, then grasped the chance straight off the face of the bat in his outstretched left hand, inches from the ground.
When Brook – Gilbert Jessop’s nemesis at Rawalpindi – opened his latest account with four runs from his first 26 balls, it did seem for a time that England were reformed characters. But inevitably, that staid tempo wasn’t going to suit Brook for long. After drilling Abrar straight back down the ground for his first boundary, he picked off a further seven fours and a six in making 69 runs in his remaining 80 balls before the close.
At the other end, Duckett too stepped up his urgency, though seeing as his second dexterous fifty of the match had come from a perfectly brisk 68 balls, perhaps he had no need to go into overdrive. He had already been egregiously dropped by Babar Azam at midwicket on 69 when his previously disciplined knock ended with a further loss of concentration ten runs later, as he rocked back to pull another Abrar long-hop but was bowled as the ball kept low.
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Pakistan collapsed to be 202 all out against England as the visitors took a 79-run lead on a turning wicket in the second Test on Saturday.
Left-arm spinner Jack Leach struck three times and Joe Root picked up two wickets in an over as Pakistan lost eight wickets for 95 runs in the opening session on Day Two.
Leach finished with 4-98 while Root took 2-23 as the three England fast bowlers — Mark Wood (2-40), Ollie Robinson (1-2) and James Anderson (1-16) — also squeezed out Pakistan batters with their reverse swing.
The last-wicket pair of Faheem Ashraf (22) and debutant Abrar Ahmed (7 not out) added 23 runs to extend the session by half an hour before Wood wrapped up Pakistan’s innings by having Ashraf caught at deep backward square leg.
Leach snared the key wickets of half century-maker Saud Shakeel (63), Mohammad Rizwan and Mohammad Nawaz while Robinson clean-bowled captain Babar Azam off his second ball as most of Pakistan’s batters fell to poor shots.
Root then had Agha Salman caught at short mid-on and Mohammad Ali was caught in the slip as Pakistan lost three wickets without a run to stumble at 169-8.
Spinner Abrar Ahmed’s seven-wicket haul in his debut Test had limited aggressive England to 281 in the first innings on a Multan Cricket Stadium wicket where spinners are getting appreciable assistance.
Resuming on 107-2, Babar and Shakeel started confidently and took the score to 142 inside the first half-hour before Pakistan’s batting crumbled against Leach.
Lefthanded Shakeel, who made a half-century in Pakistan’s 74-run defeat in his debut Test at Rawalpindi, survived a close run-out before completing his second successive 50 off 66 balls with a swept boundary against Leach.
Robinson ignited the collapse when Babar, who made 75 off 95 balls, was outsmarted by the tall fast bowler’s reverse swing and the ball tailed into him to crash onto his stumps.
England then tied down Rizwan for 24 balls to get off the mark through the pace and spin of Leach before he finally got his first runs with a cover-driven boundary against Wood.
With England preventing runs, Shakeel got frustrated and tried to break the shackles before he holed out to wide mid-on that gave Leach his 100th Test wicket.
Rizwan laboured for 43 balls for his 10 runs and got bowled by Leach off a delivery which turned sharply away from him and hit the top of the stumps before England wrapped up Pakistan’s innings inside the first session.
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