Alastair Cook was subject to some criticism after the third day's play for not enforcing the follow-on. He made up for his decision to have another bat, with his fastest Test match half-century, one he achieved off 55 balls on the fourth morning. In contrast, England's regular ODI opener, Alex Hales, scored only 24 off the exact same number of deliveries. Cook's feat, however, was put to the shade by a belligerent Joe Root, England's double centurion from the first innings, who got to his fifty of just 38 deliveries. Such was the audacity of Root's strokeplay that Pakistan switched to stationing T20 fields.
Leg spinners Yasir Shah and Azhar Ali bowled from around the stumps with four fielder manning the leg side fence. Root found gaps between each of those fielder with an array of sweep shots, each different from the preceding stroke. There was the conventional sweep, the slog sweep and a paddle scoop sweep to the keeper's left. When Misbah appeared to have plugged all possible scoring options, England's vice captain unfurled a reverse-sweep of such ferocity that the ball raced to the backward point fence before Azhar finished his follow-through.
Death, Taxes and Anderson to Masood
It's reaching a point now when some years down the line Shan Masood may have to confess that sometimes he has dreams of James Anderson nicking him off at slips. The England fast bowler has got the better of Masood in each of the six innings that the duo has played together in. In the first innings of this Old Trafford Test, the left-handed Masood had done well to ward off the Anderson threat for a whole session on Day 2 before falling to his nemesis the following day. On Monday, Anderson needed only three deliveries against Masood to give England their opening strike in the second innings. He began to the southpaw from around the wicket and, off the very first delivery, squared Masood up. The batsman composed himself to defend the next before succumbing to his habituated urge of poking uncertainly at a delivery in the channel, to offer Cook a simply catch at first slip.
The Broad-Anderson pattern
Following Masood's dismissal in the fifth over of Pakisan's chase, bowling partners James Anderson and Stuart Broad settled into a distinct bowling pattern against Azhar Ali and Mohammad Hafeez. Anderson bowled only outswingers at the two right handers while Broad kept bringing the ball back into them. The Nottinghamshire pacer, in fact, told SkySports before start of play on Monday that he preferred bringing the ball back in to right-handers rather than have the batsman play and miss balls bowled on the fifth stump channel. Subtle variations, if any, came only in the form of the use of the crease and the bowling lengths.
After bowling 29 successive outswingers, Anderson caught Azhar Ali unawares with one that darted back in. Azhar, who'd readied himself with a shuffle to play another away swinger, was late in bringing his bat down to meet the incoming delivery and was pinged on the pads right in front of the stumps. Out LBW for 8. The intriguing ploy had paid off.
Moeen has the last laugh
When will opposition teams start taking Moeen Ali's bowling abilities seriously? Not too soon, Alastair Cook would hope. Teams have tried to hit Moeen out of the attack in the past and haven't found a great deal of success. There's a reason why Moeen holds a very acceptable strike rate of 66 for a sole spinner.
From Mohammad Hafeez to Yasir Shah, every Pakistan batsman pulled out the shots on the first sight of the off spinner. Younis Khan learnt the lesson the hard way after surviving a rather probing spell from Anderson & Co. Like Hafeez before him, Younis attempted to hit Moeen over the long on fence. The counter-attacking strategy was good but the off-spinner had 565 runs to play with and had been bowling with a long on in place. The time was not ripe for an ego tussle.
Against better judgement, Younis stepped out and slogged but succeeded only in getting a top edge and Alex Hales at long on completed a safe catch. Moeen finished with three wickets and England romped home to a 330-run win.
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