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Pakistan take the
game forward despite several interruptions |
August 19, 2006 (Link to
Scorecard)
England are fighting it out in their second
innings at The Oval as they closed the third
day's play at a solid 78 for 1 in 18 overs. They
now trail behind Pakistan by 253 runs. It was
yet another truncated day with more than 30
overs lost. There were quite a few rain and bad
light interruptions throughout the day's play
and England had infact bounced back after one
such breaks to restrict Pakistan's first innings
total to 504. Mohammad Yousuf for once couldn't
carry on to score a big hundred and he ended up
with 128. Faisal Iqbal made an unbeaten 58 to
stretch Pak's first innings total. It was a good
spell of bowling from Harmison and Hoggard today
to help England put the brakes on Pakistan. In
the end, Harmison picked up four and Hoggard
picked up three wickets. England in their reply
have lost the out of form Marcus Trescothick to
Mohammad Asif and Asif is the bowler to watch
out for England. He is indeed the thorn in the
flesh for the batsmen as almost every delivery
of his has some sort of impact on the batsmen.
The homeside is taking all the inspiration from
the large crowd that had been pepping them up to
get back in the game. However they are way
behind Pakistan in the game and it would require
a couple of great innings from its batsmen to
pull them out of the woods. The weather will
always play its part to annoy Pakistan. The
visitors' progress this morning was hampered by
two breaks and that had got Mohammad Yousuf and
Inzamam play some aggressive shots to take the
game ahead. At Lunch, Pakistan had moved onto
369 for 2 with rain interfering in the 94th
over. There was more rain after lunch and once
play resumed, Hoggard and Harmison got on top of
their game to bowl some testing deliveries.
Inzamam had to succumb to one such delivery that
had forced him to play and the extra bounce and
seam movement from Harmison forced a nick to the
slips. The Pakistan Skipper fell for 31 and that
ended a calming 54-run partnership for the 4th
wicket. In the next over, Hoggard complimented
Harmison by bowling a beautiful outswinger that
had enticed a drive from Yousuf away from his
body and it was a catch for the keeper. Yousuf's
128 had come in 236 balls with 18 boundaries.
Kamran Akmal's indifferent form with the bat
continued and he got out playing a loose stroke
off a seaming delivery from Harmison to leave
Pakistan at 398 for 6. Shahid Nazir joined
Faisal Iqbal and both batsmen were taking Pak to
almost Tea but for Nazir getting dismissed just
at the stroke of Tea playing an ambitious pull
off Sajid Mahmood. Pakistan slipped down to 444
for 7 at the break with Faisal Iqbal progressing
well on 30. After the break, he got decent
support from Umar Gul and Danish Kaneria to
stretch Pakistan's lead further. Monty Panesar
took the wicket of Umar Gul and Harmison took
the remaining two wickets leaving Faisal Iqbal
stranded on 58.
Pakistan had taken a 331-run lead which was a
massive one and they got off to an excellent
start with the ball with Asif nailing
Trescothick. Mohammad Asif had bowled one from
wide of the crease from over the stumps to force
the left hander to play at his slanting across
delivery and the resulting edge was taken well
by Kamran Akmal. Strauss and Cook then fought
extremely hard against some quality bowling to
see England through with just the one wicket
loss. Pakistan were a bowler short in Shahid
Nazir who couldn't bowl as he had got a painful
blow while batting against Steve Harmison. So
the cricket in this Test Match is looking to be
high class with the English batsmen battling it
out to keep their fans happy against the probing
Pakistani attack. We will have to see if Kevin
Pietersen can make any amends or not following
his first ball duck in the first innings. But
for now, Pakistan are the favourites as Mohammad
Asif is blossoming into a bowler of Glenn
McGrath's caliber.
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