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England v Pakistan, 2nd Test Day Two: Five Things We Learned

England v Pakistan, 2nd Test Day Two: Five Things We Learned

England score 589-8 and then take four key wickets to reduce Pakistan to 57-4 at stumps. Here’s what we learned from a one-sided day at Old Trafford…

MAN OF THE DAY - JOE ROOT (254)

Majestic. Utterly majestic. Discard the blemish that was his heave into the leg side to get dismissed – this was as clean and pure a Test innings you will ever wish to see. The innings took him to third in the list of the highest scores by an English number three. For a moment, 300 look on the cards, but it wasn’t to be. As we mentioned yesterday, the unconverted fifties had occupied his mind in the lead-up to this fixture. As such the celebration when he reached 200 was telling: a visceral scream, pump of the fist and swing of the axe. That all of Pakistan’s fielders shook his hand was a nice touch – they could have just applauded him off and that would have been good enough. But maybe even they realised just how good a knock they witnessed. He batted for almost 11 hours – they probably wanted to make sure he would actually leave.

SUMMER OF WOAKES

From much-maligned to must have. Moving on from Lord’s was always going to be difficult for Chris Woakes. There was little time to savour, nor the appetite to as England nursed their wounds after a painful defeat. But he was at least able to appreciate that he was finally “welcome” at Test level and, on the second day of this second Test, he backed that up in some style. The fifty – a second in Tests – was, to be fair, expected: he has the game of a top six batsman (nine first class hundreds, remember). In a partnership of 103 with Root, he was the aggressor, hitting the shot of the day against Mohammad Amir, ramping him over third man for six! And just when it looked like Pakistan would see out the day easily, he summoned movement and bounce from what many had written off as a road: finding Mohammad Hafeez’s edge before the drinks break, taking a nice caught and bowled off Azhar Ali and then bumping fellow nightwatchman Rahat Ali. He was 14 wickets in the series so far at an average of 8.57. Arise, Sir Woakes…

NOSIR

One minute your spinning your way onto the honours board – and your team to a grand victory. The next, you’re in the dirt for the best part of two days, conceding the most amount of runs that any one bowler has leaked at Old Trafford. Regardless of how good a leg spinner you are, it’s tough work trying to work away on days one and two, when the batting side is well set on a flat pitch. It was hard not to feel for Yasir Shah today. His margins were error were smaller here, meaning that even when he was getting prodigious spin out of the rough, he couldn’t quite control the drift outside leg stump from around the wicket. If that all wasn’t bad enough, Sarfraz Ahmed dropped Jonny Bairstow off his bowling meaning 54 overs reaped just one wicket.

WILSON!

Oh goodie, another DRS issue to sink our teeth into. Thankfully, despite third umpire Joel Wilson’s best efforts, this is actually quite simple. If you missed it, Ben Stokes gloved Wahab Riaz behind. See for yourself. The umpire said it was not out and Pakistan reviewed successfully. It seemed out, there was a smidge on Hot Spot (as well as one that was there already) and a spike on RTS – registering greater than the background noise – meant an umpire could collate this information and overturn the standing decision. However, Wilson took an age to cycle through the various videos, going back to previous frames and generally seeming like he had no idea what had actually happened. And then, at the end, said matter-of-fact-ly that there was “conclusive evidence” to overturn the decision. Naturally, social media weren’t happy, having been granted a box seat to his fumbling about. Given he was mic-ed up, he might think twice about vocalising every though. Naturally, Ben Stokes was furious.

WHAT NEXT

Toil, for England. The pitch is still great for batting, the movement off the surface isn’t sizeable but, in the right areas, it does do enough. It will also present Moeen Ali with the chance to really set his stall out. With runs on the board, turn available and Pakistan in no great rush to bat, he could really get into a much needed groove. A career-defining few days await for him…