England defiance ends at final hurdle

In the end there was to be no great escape.

England, after batting for 137.3 overs, were finally undone, Adil Rashid having a momentary lapse of concentration and swiping leg-spinner Yasir Shah (4-87) to cover to hand Pakistan a 1-0 lead in the three-Test series.

For Pakistan, it was a fitting finale; Shah finished with eight wickets for the match (he now has 69 in just 11 Tests) to underscore the importance of his absence in the series opener in Abu Dhabi. 

The hosts must have thought their chances of winning this second Test were slipping away when, with just 6.4 overs of the match remaining, England were clinging on for grim life.

Rashid, England’s No.8 batsman and leg-spinner himself, had batted superbly for his first Test half-century.

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The Yorkshireman can bat and his near-on four hours of defiance in Dubai anchored what was shaping as one of the great Test-match rear-guard actions.

Despite defeat, England’s numbers eight, nine, 10 and 11 batted for 322 balls. That’s 54 overs in real money and no tail in Test history has batted for longer in a fourth innings. It was a phenomenal effort that puts England’s brittle middle order to shame.

For Australian fans, England’s efforts yesterday must have given them flashbacks to Cardiff in 2009, when last-wicket pair Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar somehow blocked out the final 12 overs to save the opening Ashes Test for their team.

In that match, though, England had needed to only bat 105 overs in their second innings to rescue a draw. The two draws months later, when South Africa were denied wins at Centurion and Cape Town, had seen England bat for 96 and 141 overs respectively in their last innings.

Then there was Auckland in 2013, New Zealand robbed of what would have been a deserved series win by an England team who had started the final day five wickets down and managed to bat out 143 overs in all to save the game.

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England captain Alastair Cook knows this game was lost on the third morning, when his team imploded to hand Pakistan a 136-run first-innings advantage.

He admitted afterwards: “I’ve been involved in too many of these and never actually been out there batting, I’d much rather be out there than watching.

“You always have faith and belief in the team,” he added. “When ‘Woody’ (Mark Wood) walked out with 40 overs to go it didn’t look quite so encouraging but he can bat, so can Jimmy and he’s done it before, and as that partnership grew and grew people sat stiller and stiller and didn’t move as much.

“The belief started to happen but it was a long way back from that third morning and we probably didn’t deserve to get out of jail however well Adil played.”

Wood and Rashid came together for a mammoth ninth-wicket stand that lasted two hours and 22 minutes. It kept the match alive beyond the tea interval and deep into the final hour.

Wood eventually fell with 12.1 overs of the day still left. And with Anderson next in, England’s belief was still there.

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Unlike Cardiff six years ago, where Cook was forced to sit in the showers by his team-mates as they were scared he would jinx the last-wicket pair by moving, the opener at least saw the action this time.

“It’s not great,” Cook said of the ordeal of being put through so many last-ditch salvage efforts. “It was a bit better today. I found myself out the front watching so I couldn’t move. You either watch or look at the floor. But it’s not great.”

The good news for Cook and England is their captain should be fine for the final Test in Sharjah despite suffering a groin injury on day four here.

“It was a little bit discomforting and a bit of a concern but it’s pulled up a bit better today,” said Cook. “We’ve got a really good medical team and they are hard at work. They’ll be badgering me for the next however many days, but Jimmy just told me to drink a glass of cement and toughen up and get on with. Because he’s so tough himself. It should be fine.”

England will need their captain fit and firing as despite their valiant efforts here, they are 1-0 down in the series and only a win in the final Test will now do.