ENGLAND ALL-OUT 219! WICKET! Anderson lbw b Shadab.
Anderson’s review was purely in hope, missing his reverse sweep with Shadab coming around the wicket – that’s very out. Pakistan’s lead is 107.
ANDERSON GIVEN LBW! He challenges. Stand by.
Adam Collins
70th over: England 217-9 (Broad 29, Anderson 5) Good afternoon! Thanks, Tim. An eventful start to my stint today, Broad smacking Yasir over midwicket for SIX! He tries to let the good times roll and goes again but via a fat top edge this time… and it’s DROPPPED by Shadab on the rope at long leg. Oh dear. He has a brilliant pair of hands too, as we saw this morning with his snaffle off Pope’s blade. By comparison, the rest of the over is positively tame. Send me an email. There’s news breaking at ICC HQ, which I’ll tell you more about shortly. I’m furious.
Adam Collins
(@collinsadam)If you ever needed proof of everything you ever knew to be true about how world cricket works, here it is. https://t.co/mLGnjXvjhN
70th over: England 217-9 (Broad 29, Anderson 5) Broad swings Yasir to leg, high, wide and just handsome enough, as it just eludes the man at deep square and goes for six. When he tries it again, he gives Shadab a very catchable catch – and he drops it, and it dribbles for four. Peter Moores’s remodelling of Broad’s batting is working a treat. But England are still 109 behind. And it’s time for me to hand over to Adam Collins. Thanks for your views on Buttler, ice-cream and everything else.
69th over: England 204-9 (Broad 16, Anderson 5) Before that, there was another run-out scare as Broad looks for two into the covers and Anderson dives to beat a fine throw. The world has gone mad.
Not out!
Umpire’s call! The bowler was Shadab, the ball was a beautiful googly – pitching on middle, bamboozling the left-handed Broad, clipping the bail.
68th over: England 202-9 (Broad 14, Anderson 5) Jimmy pulls out the reverse sweep! And gets four for it, to bring up the 200. “The Burnley Lara,” says Michael Holding, with just the right amount of irony.
67th over: England 198-9 (Broad 14, Anderson 1) So England are down to the old firm. Entering into the spirit of the afternoon, they nearly conjure a run-out as Anderson sees a chance to get off the mark with a cover push and Broad is slow to respond.
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Wicket! Archer c Rizwan b Shadab 16 (England 197-9)
And another… Shadab joins in the fun, which he himself started about 24 hours ago, with his running between the wickets. A wicked leg-break brushes the glove, Rizwan snaffles it and Archer doesn’t bother to review.
Jofra Archer looks down after being bowled by Shadab Khan. Photograph: Lee Smith/Reuters
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66th over: England 195-8 (Archer 15, Broad 13) It’s all happening: hell, we’ve even had two leg byes.
“You’re right,” says Rob Wilson, “to endorse any Shane Warne remarks about the mechanics of legspin, but it should always be accompanied by a proviso about its generic reliability. Warne was an inveterate and magnificent spoofer. Forget the annual arrival of his new (entirely fictional) Mystery Ball, he would routinely misidentify shooters, sliders and non-spinning spinners. All in a Butlin’s Magic Act effort to obscure or disguise the greatest straight ball in the history of cricket. A monument of bullshit meant to befuddle and bewilder. There is simply no way he wouldn’t provide that meretricious assistance to a leggie who had taken his fancy. He cannot be believed. It is not in his nature. Nor any other legspinner in that magnificent Brotherhood of Piffle and Palaver.” Nicely put – but there’s no reason for him to bullshit now, is there? Hence the straight answer (55th over) to Ebony Rainford-Brent’s crisp question.
Review! For caught behind off Archer
Yasir thinks he’s got a tickle but there’s fresh air, surely…
65th over: England 192-8 (Archer 14, Broad 13) Much better from Archer, who sends a cover drive rasping to the rope, then leathers a straight drive, which is deflected on to the stumps by Shadab. There’s an appeal but Broad is smiling, knowing he hasn’t left his ground.
64th over: England 187-8 (Archer 9, Broad 13) Archer’s doing his best to maintain his dismal average, first dawdling between the wickets, then having a mow and only just eluding the man at cover. And here comes Shadab, so it’s leg spin at both ends. Only from Pakistan.
63rd over: England 184-8 (Archer 7, Broad 12) In Azhar’s shoes, I’d be tempted to have leg-spin from both ends, but he goes back to Shaheen Afridi, who is clipped for four by the renascent Stuart Broad. And then inside-edged for four more. And then walloped over extra cover. England’s only hope now is a bit of mayhem from Broad.
62nd over: England 171-8 (Archer 6, Broad 0) In this spell, Yasir has three for five – and his other wicket was the crucial one of Joe Root. England may be wondering whether to send for Adil Rashid.
Wicket! Woakes b Yasir 19 (England 170-8)
And another! Yasir is having so much fun that he deliberately bowls a fast long-hop, which skids under Woakes’s pull and smacks into the top of middle stump. Yasir has four and England are in a whole heap of trouble.
Chris Woakes is beaten and bowled by Yasir Shah. Photograph: Gareth Copley/Getty Images
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61st over: England 170-7 (Woakes 19, Archer 6) The only way this early afternoon could get worse for England would be if they had a run-out. Archer and Woakes do their best with a horrible mix-up, but it’s matched by some comical fielding. The upshot is that Woakes has a nasty graze on his elbow. His personal stylist will be horrified.
“I do think we are using the word collapse in the wrong context here,” says Kim Thonger. “For something to collapse it surely must be deemed to have been built in the first place? This seems to me like subsidence, ‘the gradual caving in or sinking of’ something. The definition of subsidence is not restricted by the rate, magnitude, or area involved in the downward movement. This is Kim Thonger, being irritating, live from the county of Semanticshire, at the heart of the region of England known as Pedantry.” Ha. I think I may have grown up there.
60th over: England 167-7 (Woakes 18, Archer 4) Jofra Archer owes England a few runs – his Cricinfo profile page calls him an allrounder, yet he has a Test average of 8. He manages to survive another few balls from Yasir.
59th over: England 166-7 (Woakes 17, Archer 4) A couple of singles off Naseem. Yasir is suddenly bowling so well that both batsmen would rather be facing an 89mph wonder-kid.
“For what it’s worth,” says Guy Hornsby, “I don’t want Buttler out, I want him to succeed, such is his monstrous talent. It’d be a curate’s egg if batting obduracy got him there. But you can’t just attack, especially with the scores he finds himself coming in at. He is learning on the job.”
Personally, I’d like to see him attack a bit more. If he’s going to block, he’s not bringing anything to the party that you won’t get from Ben Foakes, who seems to be the best keeper of the three of them. Not to rule out Jonny Bairstow, but he clearly needs to work on his problem with straight balls from Test seamers.
58th over: England 164-7 (Woakes 16, Archer 3) Jofra Archer, greeted by a googly, jabs down on it and gets two off a thick edge. We need to know what Yasir had for lunch.
Wicket! Bess c Asad b Yasir 1 (England 161-7)
Another one! Yasir’s on fire now, finding bounce and turn. Bess can only pop this up in the air and Asad Shafiq covers a lot of ground from slip to grab it somewhere near backward point. The collapse is on.
Asad Shafiq takes the catch to dismiss Dom Bess. Photograph: Dan Mullan/Getty Images
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57th over: England 161-6 (Woakes 16, Bess 1) Bess gets a straight one from Naseem and seizes the chance to get off the mark, shifting his weight so that his defensive push goes into the gap at midwicket.
56th over: England 160-6 (Woakes 16, Bess 0) England’s plan against Yasir – attack, attack – has run aground on the rocks of events, dear boy, events. That’s another maiden.
55th over: England 160-6 (Woakes 16, Bess 0) A run from the bat! Woakes clips Naseem past mid-on.
Shane Warne, who knows a bit about leg spin, has been examining Jos Buttler’s dismissal. “That one was a hardly spun leg-break that just went straight on,” he says. “Nobody did anything wrong. Natural variation, one of your best weapons as a spinner.” So how many wickets did you get with natural variation, asks Ebony Rainford-Brent. “Plenty! And I never admitted it.” That’s great commentary, from both of them.
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Not out!
It was going down the leg side – Naseem’s youthful exuberance getting the better of him, for once.
54th over: England 159-6 (Woakes 15, Bess 0) Dom Bess gets some solid blocks in, but then Yasir drags his length back and beats him with a classic leg-break. So Yasir defies the doubters who said he couldn’t bowl in England outside London, and the curse of the live-blogger does for Buttler.
Wicket!! Buttler b Yasir 38 (England 159-6)
Yasir’s top-spinner goes straight through the gate! That’s a big, big moment. England are down to the bowlers now, and Pakistan can already smell victory.
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53rd over: England 159-5 (Buttler 38, Woakes 15) It’s Naseem Shah, who produced the moment of the morning. A sucker for alliteration, he now persuades Woakes to waft at a wide one. Another one gets past the bat later in the over, to make a strong start after lunch.
“Most people seem to have already dropped Buttler for the next Test,” says Ben Mimmack, “but do you think he can still save himself with the bat? Surely a big ton here that drags England to a first innings lead would be enough? Yep – I’m the one over here counting all these brown ovoids as fully fledged chickens.”
A small ton would be enough. Actually, a battling 67 might well be enough. On this pitch, it’s not easy to reach 20 – only five men have managed it, which makes Shan Masood’s achievement all the greater. Buttler, in Tests, has become a battler: he has stuck around for 106 balls in this innings and 390 this summer, which is more than Ollie Pope (325) and much the same as Joe Root and Joe Denly combined (383). It would be surprising if all that were to be outweighed by one bad day with the gloves.
“Is sunny on the Wirral,” writes Ian Copestake, my meteorologist of choice. “So there is weather-based hope at least.”
England tour postponed
England’s white-ball tour of India, scheduled for next month, has been postponed “until early 2021”. No great surprise there as the Indian Premier League, itself postponed by a few months, is now expected to start in mid-September (in the UAE). In a statement, the ECB said: “BCCI and ECB are in consultation with a view to confirming the 2021 schedules for an all-formats England men’s tour to India to run from late January to late March and for India’s Test tour to England due in the summer of 2021.”
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