Captain Alastair Cook has confirmed that England will retain an unchanged line-up for the final Test of the summer against Pakistan at The Oval.
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An improvement on their record in the final Test of a series is clearly the next matter to address.
But while recent results may have been disappointing, this tour has not been dogged by the controversy that afflicted Pakistan’s last two trips to England. The visitors have a 44%-win rate at The Oval, which is their best outside Pakistan, Zimbabwe or the UAE.
Strauss’s side were at number one for barely a year before defeats by Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates and a home series loss to South Africa knocked them off their perch.
Hales, however, did share his maiden century opening stand with Cook at Edgbaston as the pair erased a first-innings deficit of 103 runs. However, he is still waiting for the defining, three-figure innings that will secure his tenure as Test opener for the near future. “Five Tests against India, who could be No.1”. The fortunes of Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan have been divergent but they have common cause to try and finish the series with heads and bats held high.
And the opening batsman said an emerging England team had some way to go to match the experienced side of four years ago.
Pakistan will still have a say in England’s impending status, and their coach Mickey Arthur is confident the tourists are ready to battle back this week. If Iftikhar Ahmed – who “bowls offspin and decently”, according to Arthur – wins a Test debut, he would likely come into the side at Mohammad Hafeez’s expense but bat in the middle order, with Azhar Ali asked to open.
Chris Woakes has taken 23 wickets in this ongoing series, equalling the record for most wickets by an England bowler in a Test series against Pakistan. We’ve got that at the moment. “Put it this way, he’s giving himself the best chance to perform and I’ll take my hat off to chap like that any day of the week”.
“In the third Test match, I believe it was some of our mistakes that let England come back into that game. We stuck with Mo because he’s such a valuable member of the side with the runs he has scored and in the last game he bowled really well”.
Teams, though, have a responsibility, too, and most drag their feet to such an extent that outside of the spin-dominated subcontinent lost overs – even with an extra half-hour at the end of the day built in to make them up – are the new normal in Test cricket.
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Alan Gardner is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo.
