Alastair Cook celebrated his 50th Test as England captain with a fluent century that helped his team reach 210/2 at tea in the second Test against Pakistan on Friday.
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Root, in the manner of Yorkshire and England great Geoffrey Boycott, forced both Wahab Riaz and Amir through cover-point off the back foot for fours as he and his skipper looked to make the most of an even-paced pitch in sunny conditions ideal for batting.
“I always believe as a good bowler you have to bowl good overs against good players to get them out”. It’s really important that we keep building.
“We’re obviously in a good position now – it’s about making the most of that tomorrow and making sure we get some partnerships going”.
“That’s what’s pleasing as a captain – you talk about things and to go out and do it straight away as a batting unit I thought was really impressive”.
“It’s one thing winning the toss but they then had got to go out there and play well and make up for the mistakes they made at Lord’s”, added the Sky Sports expert. Their leading lights, Cook and Root, did their utmost to set the tone.
The only surprise was that Cook’s innings was to end so quickly afterwards as, possibly disturbed by what seemed like an extra over beyond 3.40pm before tea, he was bowled by one that kept low to fall again to Amir.
It was a week later than it should have been but England finally turned up for this series on Friday with the captain and the man destined to replace him righting the wrongs of Lord’s all by themselves. “And I think more than Rashid it will be Anderson, Broad, Woakes and Stokes who will test our batsmen at Old Trafford“, he said. I said at the start of the series that might happen and there has got to be some effect a little bit. Both these player were not part of Lord’s Test due to injuries.
Test cricket is a test of patience – it is the batsman against the bowler and a matter of who will crack first.
“It doesn’t matter which ground we’re playing at”, said Misbah.
That meant England were 210 for two heading into the final session of the first day of the second cricket Test.
“Sometimes the expectation does put you under pressure, and you are trying to deliver the same performance”, he said. But he started losing the discipline that he had in the last match.
“The ball was not coming nicely from his hand”.
Root’s 10th format century came after several occasions when he has, on his own admission, had only himself to blame for falling short. Yasir bowled 18 overs unchanged – split by the lunch interval – and by the time he was given a break, England had taken him for 69 runs and gone some way towards ensuring no immediate hangover from their poor display against at Lord’s.
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Amir had to run the gauntlet of local humour by the time he got into his third spell as the Manchester crowd demonstrated their memory of his spot-fixing past with a succession of ironic “no-ball” calls from the temporary stand square with the wicket.
