However, showing admirable resilience, England recovered to win the third Test by 141 runs Sunday to go 2-1 up with one to play ahead of the series finale at The Oval starting on Thursday.
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With a rare sense of symmetry, each of England’s five bowlers took two wickets although it required a devastating spell by Steve Finn and Chris Woakes, which yielded four wickets for just one run, to open up the innings.
The job wasn’t done just yet for England though, as an excellent last wicket partnership from Sohail Khan and Rahat Ali frustrated them, taking the game to the bowlers with a quickfire 50 partnership, eventually getting within 10 more overs of seeing the game out.
It means England lead 2-1 heading into the final match at the Oval this week, where another could see them ascend to No1 in the Test rankings if results elsewhere go their way.
England showed captain Alastair Cook a new resilience to beat Pakistan at Edgbaston, and put themselves in with a chance of topping the world Test rankings this summer.
“We hate losing, of course we do, but we lost with a lot of credibility at Edgbaston and that puts us in a really good space to come back particularly hard here”, the former Australia coach insisted.
Cook earlier declared at 445-6 and set Pakistan a target of 343 runs to win in a maximum 84 overs on a friendly batting wicket.
While England are likely to stick with the same combination for the final Test against Pakistan, the performance of Moeen Ali, who was the Man of the Match at Edgbaston, drew praise from the coach.
But Cook’s opposite number Misbah-ul-Haq saw things differently.
“Anderson and Broad are used to these conditions”.
Ali broke the stand soon after lunch when he lured Azhar Ali to play an expansive drive and edged to Cook at second slip.
Aslam’s defensive ability, and his awareness of exactly where his off-stump is in leaving the moving Dukes ball in particular, has been impressive for someone playing in just his fourth global fixture. Nathan Lyon bowled very well there, got some spin and bounce out of the wicket.
Two in an over for Woakes, who has Sarfraz Ahmed feeling for one outside off, with Joe Root snatching a low catch in the cordon.
“We have to send someone to England to learn how they reverse swing the ball”, said Misbah, with a smile.
Jonny Bairstow was 82 not out and Ali 60 not out after their century stand had taken the match away from Pakistan on Saturday.
The procession continued in the first over after the break when Anderson removed Shah (7), the spinner caught by Alex Hales, then Woakes caught Mohammad Amir (16) off Broad.
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Adil Rashid, who was an integral part of England’s tour to UAE past year, took seven wickets in his County Championship match and Bayliss admitted that he is “very” tempted to play Rashid in the final Test and going forward as well.
