Moeen reached three figures with a huge six after stepping down the pitch against spinner Yasir Shah.
Advertisement
Subsequently, one Pakistani television station suggested England could have illegally tampered with the ball.
Pakistan are already a wicket down, but expect them to be pretty controlled in their approach as they have been all series – they will get close on first innings, but they should be behind and either all out or very close to by the end of the day, and given they have to bat last well behind in the match.
Alastair Cook’s men are 2-1 up in the series, and a win or a draw could take them to the No.1 spot in the ICC world rankings.
The tourists are expected to make one change to the team beaten in Birmingham, dropping out-of-form opener Mohammad Hafeez and bringing batting all-rounder Iftikhar Ahmed into the middle order.
Wahab’s recall appeared inspired as he helped cut through England’s top order in the morning. Cook was dropped in the 16th over in the slips. But they stuck with me and that’s the good thing at the moment, we stick with players and you see the results.
England were 23 for one and that became 69 for two when Cook, who added just two runs to his score following his earlier let-off, played Sohail Khan onto his own stumps.
Wahab was the inspiration behind that implosion, Joe Root edging him behind on 26 before James Vince, the victim of a beautifully brutal delivery, did likewise.
Riaz then removed Gary Ballance in the second over after lunch to reduce England to 110-5, but Bairstow and Moeen profited from Pakistan’s fielding lapses.
However, Jonny Bairstow and Moeen stabilised the innings with a 93-run stand that at times led a charmed life.
Pakistan, trailing 2-1 in the series, then ran into early trouble in their reply when Sami Aslam was trapped leg before wicket by Stuart Broad.
Amir was bowling well too, but his reward would not come – and when Azhar put down a straightforward slip chance, the left-armer kicked the ground in understandable frustration.
Pakistan looked to assume control once again when Bairstow’s inside edge off Amir was taken by Sarfraz for 55.
Broad was out lbw to Sohail two balls later for a duck, England losing their eighth wicket with 282 runs on the board.
His wicket was the fourth to fall.
At that stage, Ali was still 11 runs shy of a hundred.
Watch Moeen Ali smack a six to reach his century on the first day of the fourth test at The Oval.
Advertisement
The Worcestershire stalwart earned another reprieve when the same man spurned a hard chance that spun up off Yasir at short leg and he took advantage of that to bring up a third consecutive 50 to help a recovering England to post 200-5 at tea. Of course, big heavy objects moving at speed can do a lot of damage, take a lot of stopping and need to be met with similarly heavy objects also moving swiftly if they are not to bludgeon their way to wherever they will. Juggernauts and supertankers have momentum and, increasingly these days, so do cricket teams.
