Shoaib Malik (L) and Mohammad Hafeez run between the wickets during the first day’s play of the first Test match between Pakistan and England at The Sheikh Zayed International Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
By Mike Selvey/The Guardian
It was 35 minutes into the final session when Younis Khan chose to heave Moeen Ali’s off spin mightily over the deep wicket boundary for six, a real kitchen-sinker, to instigate some raucous applause from the few Pakistan supporters who were able to find their way to the Zayed Stadium for the opening day of the series.
As Stuart Broad, on the fence, craned his neck and watched the ball sail over his head, the camera cut to the advertising hoarding beyond which it landed; “Bradford College” it read, “where great careers start”. There was an irony in this, for that stroke took Younis beyond the 8,832 career runs of Javed Miandad to become the most prolific of all Pakistan batsmen. Younis’s great career is in its twilight years, not its infancy.
Whether this makes Younis a greater player than the streetfighter Javed or the languid prince Inzamam-ul-Haq will always be a topic of debate. But he is in the upper echelons of the batsmen of his time and, once more under the searing heat of the desert sun, he was in the process of slicing and dicing the England bowling attack just as he had done in these parts four years or so ago.
England stuck to their task commendably, and the seamers were outstanding, gaining some late reward for their diligence but it was always going to be a stern examination once Misbah-ul-Haq had won the toss for Pakistan. Seven times in eight matches here Pakistan have had the luck with the coin, and only twice they have put the opposition in, to their profit: this was never going to be one of those occasions.
By the close, Shoaib Malik had made a century on his return to the side after five years in the wilderness, Mohammad Hafeez had come within two runs of a hundred of his own, and Younis had been galavanting merrily along against a tiring attack, all angular shots and wrist, until Broad did for him in the ring of fielders set short on the leg side. England took the second new ball with what proved to be three overs of the day remaining, but made no further breakthrough, so Pakistan will start the second day on 286 for four, with Shoaib having hit 14 fours in his unbeaten 124 and Asad Shafiq on 10.
On Sunday, Jimmy Anderson had suggested that a key to bowling was recognising the conditions early and changing plans quickly.
So once his opening delivery failed to deviate and scarcely carried to Jos Buttler, it was clear that eventually the seamers would need to bowl straight, and vary pace with close fielders set in front of the wicket. The pacemen, all four of them, were exemplary, with Anderson collecting an early wicket, a collector’s item as an attempted bouncer deflected from the grille of Shan Masood’s helmet onto the stumps, and Ben Stokes, much later gaining a well-earned lbw decision against Hafeez as he ventured too far across his stumps in looking for the runs he needed to reach his hundred. Anderson did take a second wicket in the final session, the key one of Misbah, who has hundreds in four successive matches here.
The appeal for a catch behind was turned down by Paul Reiffel, but reviewed by England, and it was hard to see on the visual evidence, without benefit of hotspot or snicko, how that could be overturned. Somehow, the third umpire, Sundaram Ravi, after numerous replays,thought otherwise,presumably on audio, although as the noise in the ground was scarcely cacophonous it is difficult to see how Reiffel would have missed it in that case. Misbah stalked back to the dressing room.
In terms of spin, though, Moeen was tidy at the start and adequate overall, but Adil Rashid, on his Test debut, and handled sympathetically by Alastair Cook, was a disappointment, played comfortably in defence, targeted as vulnerable by Hafeez and Shoaib, with too many poor deliveries that kept the board moving. Although he clawed his figures back in a seven over spell towards the end of the day, there were 10 fours in his 17 overs, nine of them in the first 10. He will have better days. It is axiomatic to cricket in such trying conditions that those necessarily fewer chances that are created are taken, and in this the England performance was flawed. In practice on the eve of the game, Trevor Bayliss had worked the fielders brutally in an intensive session, but when only on seven, Haveez edged Anderson comfortably to Ian Bell at second slip, who dropped the chance and did so again in the penultimate over of the day, off the same bowler, when Shafiq had 10.
Previously, after lunch, Shoaib, when 40, drove loosely at wide ball at the start of a new spell from Broad, and edged to Joe Root, a floating fourth slip, who held the catch comfortably, only for the dismissal to be overturned because the bowler had overstepped.
