Though the visitors Pakistan had a difficult start at the beginning of the second day of the ongoing opening game of the three-match Test series against the hosts England at Old Trafford (Manchester), opener Shan Masood’s incredible 150+ and Pakistan pacers’ brilliant start marked the day for the visitors.
Starting the day on the overnight score of 139/2, Pakistan were struggling on 187/5 at the lunch, but Shan Masood’s 156 runs off 319 balls (18 fours and 2 sixes) massively helped the Pakistan team to manage the first innings total of 326 runs. In reply, Pakistan ended the day two on 92/4, trailing by 234 runs.
Pakistan innings: Shan Masood and Shadab Khan put the sixth wicket partnership of 105 runs
On the sixth ball of the day, English pacer James Anderson sent Babar Azam (69) back to the pavilion without adding any run on the team’s scoreboard.
Then another overnight batsman, opener Shan Masood completed his half-century (156 balls) in the next over. Meanwhile, English pacers Stuart Broad and Chris Woakes dismissed Asad Shafiq (7) and wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan (9) cheaply in the first session of the day.
However, in the second session, Masood built up the crucial 105 runs partnership for the sixth wicket with Shadab Khan. During that partnership, Masood completed his third successive Test century in 251 balls and became the sixth Pakistan batsman (second Pakistan opener) to score three consecutive Test centuries.
On the other hand, Shadab scored 45 runs before losing his wicket as it was the only wicket in that innings for the English off-spinner Dom Bess.
Around half-an-hour later, Jofra Archer dismissed Yasir Shah (5) and Mohammad Abbas (0) on back-to-back deliveries.
Then Masood played some big shots to add the runs quickly on the board. At the tea break, Pakistan were batting on 312/8.
On the seventh delivery of the last session, Broad dismissed Masood (lbw). Though the Pakistan opener took the DRS, there was no different luck for him. In his next over, Broad finished the visitors’ batting line-up after dismissing Naseem Shah for a duck. Shaheen Shah Afridi remained not out for nine runs.
While Broad (3/54) and Archer (3/59) took three wickets in that innings, Woakes (2/43) got two wickets and Anderson (1/63) managed to pick the same number of wickets of Bess (1/74).
England innings: All the top four batsmen lost their wickets cheaply
In reply, England were struggling on 12/3 in the sixth over. While the opener Rory Burns (4) was the victim of Shaheen Shah Afridi on the fourth ball of that innings, his opening partner Dom Sibley (8) was dismissed by Mohammad Abbas. English Test vice-captain Ben Stokes was then bowled by Abbas for the seven-ball duck.
English Test captain Joe Root handled that early tensed situation with Ollie Pope, but the Pakistan leg-spinner Yasir Shah dismissed Root (12) just after the 50 runs partnership for the fourth wicket with Pope. Pope (46*) and wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler (15*) remained not out at the stumps of the day while they have already set up the 30-run partnership for the unbroken fifth wicket.