Spectacular Rehman seals the series for Pakistan
Pakistan won the toss, elected to bat on a slow pitch and got off to a cautious start. The openers put on a half-century partnership before Swann struck the first blow, cleaning up Taufeeq Umar for 16. After dropping Hafeez off his own bowling off the previous delivery, Monty Panesar shattered Hafeez’ timber off the next to make it 61/2. Broad then produced two beauties to rattle the woodwork of Younus Khan and Azhar Ali. A 100-run partnership between Asad Shafiq and Misbah-ul-Haq resurrected Pakistan’s innings as Shafiq brought up his 4th Test Fifty. He finally departed trapped in front off Swann. Poor fielding from England saw them put down Misbah twice in the day and that cost England dearly as he powered Pakistan to 256 with a half-century, despite losing the wickets of Adnan Akmal and Abdur Rehman late on day one.
The skipper finally got out for 83 off the second over of the second day. Broad trapped him in front and Pakistan were bundled out for 257. Broad was by far the best bowler for England as he picked up four wickets.
In reply, England got off to a shaky start losing Strauss early for 11. But the pair of Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott played sensibly and strengthened England’s hold with a 139-run partnership for the second wicket. A late fightback from Saeed Ajmal, who picked up three wickets in the evening session of day two, saw them pick up 4/75 and reduce the English to 207/5. But a courageous batting effort of 58 not out from Stuart Broad powered England to a first innings lead of 70. Cook was the top scorer for the English with 94, while Trott chipped in with 74 valuable runs. For Pakistan, Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez picked up four and three wickets respectively.
Pakistan again started off cautiously in the second innings, but Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann pegged them back to 54 for 4 with wonderful spell of spin bowling. A late resuscitation in the second innings on day 3 saw Pakistan pile up a lead of 55 runs as Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq powered Pakistan to 125/4 at the end of day 3. The pair added 88 runs for the fifth wicket before the latter was dismissed for 43 early on day 4. Anderson and Broad picked up the wickets of Azhar Ali, who scored a patient 68, and Adnan Akmal(13) with the new ball. Panesar then cleaned up the tail as he picked up his 9th five-wicket haul in Tests. Panesar, making his comeback to the team after missing 29 Tests, was the pick of the bowlers for England as he finished with figures of 6/62.
Needing 145 runs to win, England got off to a slow and sluggish start and their tactic of playing cautiously backfired as they had no answer to the spin attack of Rehman and Ajmal. Rehman bowled with great heart and destroyed the batting order with a maiden five-wicket haul gaining the best Bowling Efficiency of 168 in the second innings, while Ajmal took his 100th wicket as the spin duo bowled out England for an abject 72 and powered their team to a 72-run victory. Pakistan take an unassailable 2-0 lead in the Three match series.
Abdur Rehman was named the Man-of-the-Match for his superb performance of 8/92 in the Test Match.
Subscribe to RSS
