Manchester
Pakistan were reduced to 137 for eight in their second-innings against England at stumps on the third day of the opening Test at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground in Manchester on Friday.
At the end of day’s play, Mohammad Abbas and Yasir Shah were batting at their respective scores of 0 and 12. Pakistan are currently maintaining a 244-run lead over England in the ongoing Test.
England fast bowler Stuart Broad struck early in Pakistan’s second innings after the visitors took a huge first innings lead in the second session of Day 3 of the first Test at Old Trafford in Manchester on Friday.
Earlier, Yasir Shah bagged three wickets after lunch as Pakistan sent back England for 219 to maintain their control of the first Test on the third day at Old Trafford on Friday.
The leg-spinner ripped through England’s middle and lower order with a burst of three wickets for four runs in 27 balls on his way to figures of 4-66 in 18 overs.
England, who had been 159-5 at lunch in their first innings, lost their last five wickets after the break for 60 runs.
That gave Pakistan a first-innings lead of 107 runs after they had made 326 led by opener Shan Masood’s Test-best 156.
England resumed Friday on 92-4, which represented an improvement on their dire position of 12-3 on Thursday.
Ollie Pope began the day on 46 not out and wicketkeeper Jos Buttler on 15, with no more specialist batsmen to come.
Buttler, with just one hundred from his previous 44 Tests, was under particular pressure to score runs after costly mistakes behind the stumps.
He dropped Masood on 45 and then missed a chance to stump him on the same score — errors that intensified a debate about whether the World Cup-winner should remain England’s red-ball gloveman.
Pope completed a composed 81-ball fifty, including six fours, which followed the 22-year-old’s 91 against the West Indies in last month’s third Test at Old Trafford.
But there was little he could do when, on 62, an 87 mph Naseem Shah delivery climbed late off a good length to take the shoulder of his bat, with Shadab Khan holding a good low catch at gully.
It was a wicket greeted with plenty of cheers by the fielders and reserve players watching from their hotel balconies in a series being played behind closed because of the coronavirus.—AFP
