However, light was fading fast and the umpires had little choice but to call off play after 11 overs into the innings, with England on 74 for 4.
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2 – Cook is the second England batsman to pass 1000 runs in the calendar year 2015, behind Joe Root.
Dubai will host the second Test (October 22-26) and Sharjah the third from November 1. “Over the next ten days of Test cricket we need to show the same resilience”, said Cook, part of the England team routed 3-0 by Pakistan in the UAE in 2012. Not only this Rashid stuck one more, couple of overs later, and removed Asad Shafiq.
Rashid ended with figures of 5/64 while Moeen and Anderson chipped in with two wickets each. While Root, Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan could hold their heads up high, the rest of the batsmen from both sides struggled as 15 wickets fell in the final day.
Younis finally lost patience in the 42nd over, when he tried to hoist an away-spinning delivery from Rashid to Stokes at cover.
“What happened was not on and we have to really improve on that if we want to win the series”.
If ever there was an example of the glorious unpredictability of sport then this freakish first Test between Pakistan and England was it.
“Now we would be going as the team which needed more work”. “I can’t fault the guys for hanging in there on that wicket”.
Bayliss, who played against Shane Warne during his Sheffield Shield career and then coached Stuart MacGill at New South Wales, has brought an Australian understanding of legspin to the England coaching role. Pakistan did as well but they were a bit sloppy today and we put them under pressure.
Frustrated but doubtless inspired too, having avoided defeat in the United Arab Emirates for the first time following their 3-0 trouncing here in 2012, England are impatient to lock horns with Yasir.
Nonetheless, few had expected such a thrilling ending when England, in reply to Pakistan’s 523 for 8 declared, closed its first innings at 598 for 9.
A contentious dismissal in the first innings did not help and it culminated with a odd, ill-advised slog on the final day.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan: “Many people will be watching and listening and wondering why they can’t continue and I agree with them”. They did not go a stage further and send Pakistan in, however, leaving Strauss to regret that he had been bound by the convention of always batting first in Asia, when they could have got among Pakistan’s batsmen on that first morning. “It shouldn’t take the shine off what has been a good day from England and Adil Rashid”.
“The only query I have is, in the letter of the law, is it unsafe to play?” “You can see 520 in front of you at the start and right at the end of the game, you are the only side that could win with 20 odd runs to score and six wickets left”.
Bayliss said Rashid came of age in the second knock, after a disastrous first innings in which he conceded 163 in his wicket-less 34 overs. “I don’t buy into the Pakistan time-wasting because anyone in their shoes would do the same”.
So, where did things go wrong for Pakistan in Abu Dhabi? No-one complained when play stopped at EXACTLY 6:30pm at Cardiff in 2009.
528 – Cook faced 528 balls in his marathon innings.
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However, if the appeal had been for an lbw, the Pakistan captain would have been given out.
