England vs Pakistan 3rd Test, Edgbaston

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England 1 Alastair Cook (capt), 2 Alex Hales, 3 Joe Root, 4 James Vince, 5 Gary Ballance, 6 Jonny Bairstow (wk), 7 Moeen Ali, 8 Chris Woakes, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 Steven Finn, 11 James Anderson

Pakistan 1 Mohammad Hafeez, 2 Sami Aslam, 3 Azhar Ali, 4 Younis Khan, 5 Misbah-ul-Haq (capt), 6 Asad Shafiq, 7 Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), 8 Yasir Shah, Sohail Khan, 10 Mohammad Amir, 11 Rahat Ali

not caught much of todays play but good day so far for england. need a 250 lead i reckon to be right back into this game

Brilliant start from England...even though they're only effectively 12-0.

Exactly what we needed. Be fantastic if both Cook and Hales can get to 3 figures.

Great last session for England. Now need to start with a clean slate tomorrow. Still a long way to go, but I feel more confident at stumps today than at stumps yesterday. Would like a lead of 300 before giving England a big chance of winning the game.

Well after an ordinary first day, and a poor second one, that day couldn't have gone much better for England really, right up to Hales avoiding a somewhat uncomfortable night stuck on 49 . One decent partnership from Sarfraw and Misbah aside England's seamers chipped away well on what is still a pretty flat pitch (seems to be getting flatter if anything). I was puzzled by Sarfraz's approach to batting with the tail. Never easy with the field flung wide, but Cook and Hales would have been delighted to see that last wicket partnership eat up 35-40 minutes of time right up to tea without going anywhere.

More work to be done, but England have put themselves back firmly on level pegging, maybe even fractionally ahead. Hales maybe getting that element of luck with that review of Yasir with the ball pitching only a little outside leg stump. Will be looking to cash in tomorrow.

Pakistan will need to work on Sohail's fitness. Not much wrong with his action, nice and strong, repeatable, but his fitness levels are shocking. With only four bowlers they can't really afford one of them to be limited to 15 overs per innings.

Good day all round for England : the bowlers came back well despite having to operate for the whole day yesterday and did a fine job to keep Pakistan around the hundred lead.
And then the openers came out and controlled the last session ; which is important , apart from the runs , in that everyone now gets a nights sleep before they have to bat instead of walking out with a day and a half of leather chasing in their legs and heads...

Still a lot to do : but really that went about as well as I'd hoped .

Probably rather better

Excellent last couple of sessions, I am actually quite happy with our position now and would be delighted if Hales could play like that more often than not

The draw is strongly coming into play as an outcome, England may bat on too long if not bowled out

Didn't see any of the play and haven't caught up with the Channel 5 highlights yet. I was at Lord's watching some rather good spin bowling, no wonder Surrey supporters are pushing for an England call up.

Anyway, just from a reading of the scoreboard, England have had an extremely good day and are in a cracking position. Effectively now a one innings game over 2 days in which we start on 17/0 and Pakistan will have to bat last on a day 5 track. Surprised Duty isn't posting - Print The Money!

This is what test matches should be like.
England should make 300+ now a leave a chase.

Still wide open.

Wonder if this could be the kind of thriller we had in 05 at Edgbaston or even match the 1981 Edgbaston cliff-hanger. Then, England trailed on first innings but managed to bowl Australia out to win on a boiling-hot Sunday with Botham supplying the coup de grace.
Also wonder if the turning point in this match was the final ball on day two which gave England a third wicket. Really, from 257 for two Pakistan should have managed a bigger lead than they ultimately achieved.

A couple more points from me.

One which I touched on briefly earlier, which is Pakistan's tactics. I've found Misbah to be a little too negative at times, happy to set deep fields, cut off the boundaries, and wait. It's a style that works very well in the UAE, but perhaps needs a little tweaking here. In the same vein, I was very surprised by Sarfraz's tactics with the tail, where again he seemed happy to let the game drift (a couple of big shots not withstanding). With Pakistan at that point on top, with a sizeable lead, I felt they could have tried a more positive approach.

Basically, when Pakistan lost their ninth wicket (shortly before 3pm and with the score on about 385 or so IIRC) if you'd asked Cook for his prefered scenario from there, I'm fairly confident his answer would have been: "have this pair bat on for another 35 minutes or so without scoring much, then take the last wicket sometime shortly after 3:30 giving Hales and myself the tea break to prepare". Hence the deep fields, even off the last two balls of the over. What Cook wouldn't have wanted is either the last pair to start piling on a few runs, or to have to bat a tricky 20+ minutes before tea. Guildford would usually at this point talk about Stewart's view against declaring at the start of play, since the opposition openers are then given 15 rather than ten minutes to prepare. This is even more true of a side being dismissed on the tea interval, which then gives the openers 20 minutes to prepare.

I personally feel Misbah should have either got a message out to Sarfraz to really go for it, or simply declared and had a pop at England before the break. When discussing declarations, Hussain always points out that the captain should ask himself what the opposition openers would least like (perhaps even more so when one of them is the captain), and I feel Misbah missed a trick there.

My second point is more technical, and concerns the Yasir run out. I'm simply going to point out that Bairstow took the ball in front of the stumps, and had he taken it behind them in the traditional way Yasir would have made his ground fairly comfortably (not withstanding that Yasir would probably just have made his ground had Bairstow broken the ball with his gloves rather than elbow;) ). Mike just posted this on Facebook:

"So I want everyone who thinks that the keeper taking the ball behind the stumps is the best/safest way to watch the Bairstow run-out of Yasir Shah repeatedly.

It would clearly not be out if Bairstow takes the ball behind the stumps. Equally clearly there is nothing remarkably difficult about what Bairstow does. Once he gets himself into a good position, it is just a matter of bringing the ball back to the stumps whose position he knows (the nice thing about cricket stumps is they tend to stay in the same place).

I don't know who originally came up with the idea of taking the ball in front of the wickets, but it is a fantastic piece of innovation. I am still astonished that not every keeper world-wide does this."

As he points out it is not a particularly difficult bit of skill to perfect (I do it reasonably well myself), and the time gained is considerable. Matt Prior did an excellent piece on the technique last summer, and summarised it by saying that you basically increase the area of a direct hit.

Hoping Hales can go big tomorrow - he's had a good summer against Sri Lanka, and has got a few good balls in this series. Think he's adapting to tests well (Nasser did an excellent bit on third man about how he's adjusted his defensive stroke against the quicks). We could certainly do with him nailing down that spot

Good day for England. As thought, it was good that Pakistan played well, because it meant that England had to move out of their complacent state and reveal their class.

Which they did with aplomb, particularly Alex Hales who has played a glorious innings. Also helped by Pakistan's negativity!

And now, the game is there for England to win. How bold will Cook be is the next question?

Mad for Chelsea wrote:A couple more points from me.

One which I touched on briefly earlier, which is Pakistan's tactics. I've found Misbah to be a little too negative at times, happy to set deep fields, cut off the boundaries, and wait. It's a style that works very well in the UAE, but perhaps needs a little tweaking here. In the same vein, I was very surprised by Sarfraz's tactics with the tail, where again he seemed happy to let the game drift (a couple of big shots not withstanding). With Pakistan at that point on top, with a sizeable lead, I felt they could have tried a more positive approach.

Basically, when Pakistan lost their ninth wicket (shortly before 3pm and with the score on about 385 or so IIRC) if you'd asked Cook for his prefered scenario from there, I'm fairly confident his answer would have been: "have this pair bat on for another 35 minutes or so without scoring much, then take the last wicket sometime shortly after 3:30 giving Hales and myself the tea break to prepare". Hence the deep fields, even off the last two balls of the over. What Cook wouldn't have wanted is either the last pair to start piling on a few runs, or to have to bat a tricky 20+ minutes before tea. Guildford would usually at this point talk about Stewart's view against declaring at the start of play, since the opposition openers are then given 15 rather than ten minutes to prepare. This is even more true of a side being dismissed on the tea interval, which then gives the openers 20 minutes to prepare.

I personally feel Misbah should have either got a message out to Sarfraz to really go for it, or simply declared and had a pop at England before the break. When discussing declarations, Hussain always points out that the captain should ask himself what the opposition openers would least like (perhaps even more so when one of them is the captain), and I feel Misbah missed a trick there.

My second point is more technical, and concerns the Yasir run out. I'm simply going to point out that Bairstow took the ball in front of the stumps, and had he taken it behind them in the traditional way Yasir would have made his ground fairly comfortably (not withstanding that Yasir would probably just have made his ground had Bairstow broken the ball with his gloves rather than elbow;) ). Mike just posted this on Facebook:

"So I want everyone who thinks that the keeper taking the ball behind the stumps is the best/safest way to watch the Bairstow run-out of Yasir Shah repeatedly.

It would clearly not be out if Bairstow takes the ball behind the stumps. Equally clearly there is nothing remarkably difficult about what Bairstow does. Once he gets himself into a good position, it is just a matter of bringing the ball back to the stumps whose position he knows (the nice thing about cricket stumps is they tend to stay in the same place).

I don't know who originally came up with the idea of taking the ball in front of the wickets, but it is a fantastic piece of innovation. I am still astonished that not every keeper world-wide does this."

As he points out it is not a particularly difficult bit of skill to perfect (I do it reasonably well myself), and the time gained is considerable. Matt Prior did an excellent piece on the technique last summer, and summarised it by saying that you basically increase the area of a direct hit.

Evening MfC - exactly as regards denying the opposition openers time to prepare. You probably didn't have time to slum it today and follow the county scores  but perhaps worth noting that Hants didn't declare their innings (the first innings of the match against Lancs) until just after tea on day two. Seems to be a lesson Hants learnt from painful experience as Surrey did exactly the same against them a couple of weeks ago. When asked why he didn't declare in that match at tea and batted on for 3 more overs before the declaration came, skipper Batty apparently replied, ''to p*ss them off''. Ok, it doesn't sound very gracious but I understand what he meant - we did something because we knew they didn't want us to do it. That's proper, hard cricket and only fair to Batty (and almost certainly Stewart as well) to point out we went on to win by an innings.

Only right to state up front I still haven't seen the Bairstow run out. That said and going on, I possibly flatter myself but I do wonder if I'm one of the people Mike has in mind. It did come up before he sadly declared his own innings on this forum. My point is that it requires skill and practice to work.  That therefore doesn't and shouldn't rule a keeper out from doing it. It's something he should be working on regularly and it seems Bairstow's success today is evidence of that. My issue is really with bowlers and other outfielders attempting it just because they think it is the new norm and without similar practice.

Btw, I thought of Mike today at Lord's when I saw Malan batting. Mike never went over the top in his praise of Malan but thought he might just have the potential to become an England player. With our middle order woes, I kept an eye out for him and was starting to wonder if I might be able to give him a plug tonight as he advanced fairly impressively to 30. However, those thoughts and his innings were then shot down by Ansari. Ansari - perhaps a silver lining there although probably not Surrey's best spinner.

Plan for today? Hopefully Cook will attack - bat two sessions, hopefully be in a position to swing the bat for an hour/hour and a half after tea, then declare with a lead of close to 300.

But I can see Cook being defensive and not declaring until sometime tomorrow morning.

Or maybe Pakistan will take it out of England's hands?

Hopefully England build a lead of 350ish and declare mid evening session- think we need to dangle the carrot a bit

Very nice catch. Cook throws away another chance for big runs.

Good catch by Yasir - poor shot from Cook

Oh dear...not the start we were looking for this morning.


Lets not have any more shots like that please. No need to go giving Pakistan any encouragement.

And now Hales goes prodding at one from Amir - good catch by Younus

England undoing their good work of yesterday in 15 minutes this morning

Not the start England wanted.

Bit surprised as Cook had been playing so well ; would have backed him for a hundred today.

First session big for Pakistan as they really need to make inroads : with just four bowlers and thirty five overs down last night they might find it hard to contain England later in the day if the strong batsmen are in. ..

Which Hales won't be ! Gone ...

All Pakistan this morning and the match swings again

FFS Hales - what were you thinking?!?!

Pakistan right back in this now.

Oh Alex. Not again.

England will need to re-assess, they're still 177 short of the magic 200 lead.

Huge innings for James Vince. Again!

A gritty 50+ could save his England career.

Biggest innings of James Vince's career so far this...

Credit to Pakistan for their canny bowling and great fielding, drawing both players into poor shots and bagging the catches.

That's cricket though...

Hales started well this morning , lovely boundary : thought that was one to hit ...got it a bit wrong and out. You can say he should have been more cautious after Cook had just got out but there were people criticizing him for being too passive the other day...

Pakistan will be delighted with this start : now up to Root and Vince to rebuild. This match has refused to settle into a "standard" pattern throughout - not at all boring!

Some discussion about the fairly conservative field setting . Perhaps Misbah thinks the ball is a bit old ; and the England batsmen are all inclined to be over aggressive - let's sit tight and let them self destruct ?

Pakistan not pressing their advantage, however, and they've allowed Root to get an early feel by gifting him a few easy boundaries.

Very dangerous letting Root get past single figures...

Very generous of Pakistan to allow Root and Vince to settle in with some easy singles.

Why oh why are they not pressing their attack?

If Pakistan have to chase 190-220, I think that's the 50/50 zone. 221-250, England narrow to moderate favourites. 250+, England certain.

Lead currently at 53.

Misbah is conservative by nature - as a captain , I mean ; less so as a batsman

But it is all very well to talk of pressing your advantage : the ball is fifty overs old , pitch offers little ...you can argue that closing down the scoring and trying to induce an error is the best method of attack.

Not saying I would ; but it isn't totally bonkers.

alfie wrote:Misbah is conservative by nature - as a captain , I mean ; less so as a batsman

But it is all very well to talk of pressing your advantage :  the ball is fifty overs old , pitch offers little ...you can argue that closing down the scoring and trying to induce an error is the best method of attack.

Not saying I would ; but it isn't totally bonkers.

Seems to be working too. Root looking a bit anxious now as the runs are drying up. Bowlers beating the bat a bit too.

But England won't mind that the scoring has slowed after they lost their two established batsmen so quickly. Root was out for 3 in the first dig, Vince is under huge pressure, but they're being allowed to settle.

These two are taking the sting out of the attack, seeing it through to the afternoon with no further losses, thereby giving a good platform to England for the rest of the day - Pakistan's passiveness is allowing England to do this.

Even session.

Pakistan will be delighted to have removed Cook and Hales early on. England will be pleased to have steadied the ship, with a hard-worked 50 partnership between Root and Vince.

The onus is now on England to push forward the run tally, and get the lead past 160 by tea to put Pakistan firmly on the retreat.

Duty281 wrote:But England won't mind that the scoring has slowed after they lost their two established batsmen so quickly. Root was out for 3 in the first dig, Vince is under huge pressure, but they're being allowed to settle.

These two are taking the sting out of the attack, seeing it through to the afternoon with no further losses, thereby giving a good platform to England for the rest of the day - Pakistan's passiveness is allowing England to do this.

Thats the thing though , isn't it ? On the one hand Pakistan have kept the runs in check - so a couple of quick wickets puts them on top ; on the other ; England have been allowed to settle , and the bowlers are another twenty overs into their workload...

Which way it goes is down to later events...can England wait out the good bowling and plunder runs quickly enough to set up a win ? Or will they lose patience and self destruct ? Bit like chess...
.
Could say it is a bit of a bob each way tactic from Pakistan : either England get out and give them a fairly easy target , or bat too long too slowly and we go to a draw . Instinct says that isn't too smart ; but we will see...

I think England will maintain their patience throughout this session. No need to attack until the evening! This afternoon is about wearing Pakistan down and moving them further and further from the prospect of victory.

50 for Root - good, solid innings against negative bowling.

England's lead reaches 100.

7 overs after lunch - 23 runs. Good start.

Root starting to loosen those shoulders against the non-spinning spinners.

13 off that last over.

Belatedly ...Hi MFC

Nice to read your comments ; and to hear - albeit at second hand - from Mike again. Do give him my regards as I rather miss his contributions even though we sometimes disagree , and would love to see him back on here some day.

I must admit I thought of him when Bairstow effected that run out
Not surprised to see it hailed as proof of Modern Thinking . And , while I share guildford's reservations to a degree , I do see the sense of the argument.
However I must say that in this particular case Bairstow really had no choice but to take the ball where he did , as the throw was actually a little wide of the stumps ...was either smart thinking or good fortune that he then broke the wicket "backhand" - or back elbow , as it were...so I'm not sure this can be put down as a perfect example of the New Wicketkeeper's Manual

Guildford has summed up he opposing views on pre -tea declarations. Can have it either way ,I reckon. But Misbah will always err on the side of caution...it is his nature. He remains a good captain ,in my book , just for his ability to hold a collection of Pakistani cricketers together : no easy task. But an adventurer he's not. As we see from his field settings today.
If he gets a win no one will care...

Duty281 wrote:I think England will maintain their patience throughout this session. No need to attack until the evening! This afternoon is about wearing Pakistan down and moving them further and further from the prospect of victory.

Agree very much with that. Question I suppose is whether they will then have time to force a result...

Presuming no weather interruptions ( can one presume such in England ?) there is a lot of time left. But the pitch seems pretty bland at present. Suppose England might settle for a draw after where they were Thursday night ; but I fancy they will still be wanting to get a good second crack at Pakistan ; even if not until tomorrow.

This is where we might miss Stokes the most...

Root gone ! Big blow...

Huge wicket for Pakistan. Root rightly gutted.

Gets the game moving though!

England's best chance of winning may be from getting bowled out with a lead of 200-225, rather than awaiting Cook's declaration.

The odd ball misbehaving, good signs for England.

Lead up to 137. Pressure growing on Vince to make a telling contribution - he has crawled into the 30s.

Hey Joe - whatcha doin' with that bat in your hand? Guessing he'll be annoyed with that shot, when he was so well set.

Balance of the game shifting yet again With England effectively 127-3. Hopefully still a fair bit of batting to come with Vince and Ballance at the crease.

Wouldn't fancy defending 225. Pitch is too good. They'd be pushing for a 300 lead.

Pakistan's rather negative tactics have brought them to a new ball only 137 behind ; and both England's big guns gone. So , up to a point , it has worked.
But there is still a lot of batting left : they might pay later in tired bowling fodder...

New ball session is - of course - rather important.

dyrewolfe wrote:Hey Joe - whatcha doin' with that bat in your hand? Guessing he'll be annoyed with that shot, when he was so well set.

Balance of the game shifting yet again With England effectively 127-3. Hopefully still a fair bit of batting to come with Vince and Ballance at the crease.

Two ways to look at that though : yes , in terms of the lead it is 137/3 ...which seems a bit "iffy"

But in actual fact it is still 240/3 ...and from there you'd usually fancy 400 plus. Which is what they want , of course.
OK , it is day four ...but not much funny stuff from the ball yet. So I think right now England remain in front.

But - if I may quote Geoffrey B : "you have to add two wickets to the score and see how it looks then..."

alfie wrote:

dyrewolfe wrote:Hey Joe - whatcha doin' with that bat in your hand? Guessing he'll be annoyed with that shot, when he was so well set.

Balance of the game shifting yet again With England effectively 127-3. Hopefully still a fair bit of batting to come with Vince and Ballance at the crease.

Two ways to look at that though : yes , in terms of the lead it is 137/3 ...which seems a bit "iffy"

But in actual fact it is still 240/3 ...and from there you'd usually fancy 400 plus.  Which is what they want , of course.
OK , it is day four ...but not much funny stuff from the ball yet.  So I think right now England remain in front.

But   - if I may quote  Geoffrey B : "you have to add two wickets to the score and see how it looks then..."

Well its still the "effective" total that Pakistan will have to chase, so I think thats a more realistic way of looking at it.

Oh dear...and Vince goes playing another poor shot. Gifted his wicket there and England are 253-4 (or 150-4).

Still, if they can add another 100 or so, it should present Pakistan with a tricky run chase. If Bairstow can hit a rapid 40-50 that would go a long way towards putting us back in control.

Aargh !

Vince again blows his chance to cement a place : a limp push outside off stump ...easy catch for slips. Once again he has flattered to deceive.
Does he get The Oval ? Honestly don't know...

My fear is he may be retained for a number of more Tests and just keep not going on ...leaving no time to bed in a new batman before SA and the Ashes tour. Ah well ; that's for another day.

Right now Pakistan keep pegging England back just when they seem to be moving into the comfort zone. Still a good cricket match

This series really has ebbed and flowed.

Right now Pakistan must be 90/10 favourites to win this one. Shame to see England being brittle again when they really needed better.

Dyrewolfe : I get that practically speaking its the lead that counts. Just pointing out that teams that reach 250/3 typically expect to go on to a pretty good score. Of course that is still to be achieved : and if England bats keep getting out when they seem well set it may never be ! We shall see.

Odd though that so many players have made a good start , on what seems a good pitch : and yet none has yet passed seventy...

I think a 300 lead on the last day is needed to win. Less than that and Pakistan will be huge favourites.

trebellbobaggins wrote:I think a 300 lead on the last day is needed to win.   Less than that and Pakistan will be huge favourites.

If the pitch stays like this a team may well bat all day. Scoring 300 in a day though seems a tall order given run rates throughout.
England would surely have expected to be at least twenty or thirty runs further on by now. But Pakistan , by bowling mostly "dry" have made scoring very difficult.

Have to say they've executed their tactics very well. South Africans would be proud of such discipline