Test report
June 1–3, Headingley
England v Pakistan, 2nd Test
The English yo-yo swings up again
Simon Hughes was at Headingley to
watch the England Test team bounce
back (for the umpteenth time) in all
departments to square the seriesAgainst the ugly backdrop of the
reconstructed Football Stand,
England rebuilt their team
for Headingley.
Mark Stoneman was dropped,
presumably never to return. Keaton
Jennings, who had made two recent
centuries for Lancashire, replaced
him. Ben Stokes had a pulled
hamstring and was replaced by
a Curran, though there was some
surprise when it was discovered
it was not Tom, who played the
last two Tests in the Ashes, but his
younger brother Sam. Chris Woakes
came in for Mark Wood. These
changes all rather obscured the fact
that Alastair Cook was playing a
record 154th successive Test.
On a sunny morning Pakistan,
who themselves had brought in
the debutant Usman Salahuddin
to replace the injured Babar Azam,
elected to bat. They soon regretted
that as the clouds rolled in. The ballswung and seamed lavishly. In fact,
Jimmy Anderson could not control
it and rarely made the batsmen play.
But Stuart Broad, obviously heeding
demands to bowl fuller, took two
early wickets. (Michael Vaughan had
argued that he should have been
dropped.) Woakes backed him up
with two more. England’s catching,
after the outbreak of dropsy at
Lord’s, was sound.
Anderson found his radar afterAbove
Jos Buttler took the
game away from
Pakistan with an
assured 80Right
Azhar Ali plays
around one from
Jimmy Anderson Stu ForSter/Gareth Copley/Getty imaGeSlunch to bowl Pakistan’s struggling
captain Sarfraz Ahmed and only the
precocious Shadab Khan offered
any serious resistance as Pakistan
were bundled out for 174. He was
the last man out, to give Curran
his first Test wicket. Justifying
the complaints about England’s
bowling at Lord’s, it was noted that
80 per cent of Pakistan’s wickets fell
to full deliveries.
Another significant change in
England’s approach was evident as
soon as Jennings took guard. He was
batting some way out of his crease
to Mohammad Abbas, England’s
tormentor at Lord’s.
In fact he was so far down the
pitch he had to be reminded by the
umpires not to encroach into the
danger area (some observers felt
that was not in the umpires’ remit).
The tactic worked. Abbas looked
innocuous and Jennings unfurled
several fetching cover drives to help
post a fifty opening stand. Cook also
looked impressively solid – though
he looked a bit miffed when Stokes
walked in front of the sightscreen.
The ball was still doing plenty,
however, and after Jennings
feathered a catch behind, Cook was
unluckily snared down the legside
off the glove, pulling when in sight
of a half-century. The innings
followed the same course. Batsmen
consistently stood out of their
crease to Abbas and made a decent
start – including Dominic Bess as
a perky nightwatchman – but there84 | thecricketer.com