After a rather eventful sojourn to Abu Dhabi it’s back to Dubai for Pakistan and England for the final game of the series. A dead rubber it may be, but there’s more than pride at stake, especially for the beleagured English batsmen.
This time around, it was the left-armer who took the wickets. Abdur Rehman bowled sharply and accurately for 10.1 scintillating overs, during which he made England look as competent as Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard.
England’s tail wagged, Pakistan’s top order crumbled and things are fantastically poised for tomorrow.
England dominated all bar the final hour of the day, but were powerless to resist as Saeed Ajmal clawed Pakistan back into the game.
Having lost the toss, England’s bowlers once again rose to the occasion and wore Pakistan’s batting down on an excellent pitch in Abu Dhabi.
“We’re going to bounce back”. “We’re ready to put it right”. “It won’t happen again”. Oh, just shut up and play.
England follow up their inept first innings batting performance with an even more inept one second time around, allowing Pakistan to complete a very comfortable win inside three days.
England fought to keep themselves in contention on a day of old-fashioned Test cricket.
After five months of (presumably) non-stop drinking, a massively hungover England have clearly lost all semblance of co-ordination and are unable to play spin bowling on a perfectly normal first day pitch.
Before India visited England’s green and pleasant land last summer we came up with our own predictions for the series. Not a single one of us got the score right. In fact, no one even got close. So we’ve done it again for a laugh.