the times | Friday August 7 2020 2GM 67
Sport
out for under 250. Then, as on the first
day, England’s post-lunch efforts
plummeted.
It was a puzzle why Root bowled him-
self immediately afterwards as, even
though there were only five overs until
the second new ball, he was hardly
short of seam-bowling options. In
combination with Dom Bess, who
bowled poorly, he allowed Pakistan to
generate some momentum, 27 runs
coming in five overs, so that not even
the introduction of Broad and
Anderson and the second new ball
could turn the tide. Puzzlingly, Jofra
Archer was withheld for an hour and 45
minutes, and struck immediately when
called upon.
Shadab Khan is a dangerous player,
because he runs hard, is a hare between
the wickets and looks to score at every
opportunity. He and Shan were given
initial encouragement by some lax
fielding and then they ran England
ragged, scoring 77 runs in the hour after
lunch. The odd suicidal run
notwithstanding, they seized the
initiative with some enterprising
running and batting, from which
England never recovered.
Eventually Shadab’s impetuousness
got the better of him when he charged
and hoisted Bess to mid-on, and then
Shan showed him how to do it when
accompanied by the tail, taking Bess for
16 in one over, including thumping
sixes over mid-wicket and mid-off.
Shan fell eventually to Broad, ninth
man out after 470 minutes of studied
defence, skill and application that
looked beyond him the last time he
played here.
Life and sport often offer second
chances and the key is to be ready and
prepared to seize them. Shan certainly
grabbed his chance and Pakistan will be
confident of seizing theirs over the next
three days.behind off Yasir Shah, leaving Ollie
Pope and Jos Buttler, who had come
under scrutiny for a number of
mistakes with the gloves, to try to
steady the innings.
Jofra Archer, who finished with three
for 59, believes England lacked luck
although he admitted that it had been a
trying day in the field.
“I don’t think it went our way,” the
25-year-old pace bowler said. “A lot of
balls we bowled today beat the bat or
got the edges that didn’t carry.
“Pakistan batted well and put on
some pressure after lunch but I think if
it went that way in another Test we
probably would have had them eight or
nine down in a couple of sessions.”Archer: It’s not a wicket to bowl fast
Archer came on to bowl late in the
innings to wrap up the Pakistan tail but
without the raw pace he is known for,
and claimed the wicket at
Emirates Old Trafford was
not giving rewards to the
fast bowlers. “It is not
everyday you will bowl
90mph,” he said. “No
one is a robot. This
wicket is not really one
where you will try to
bend your back.
“There was a little bit
there in the morning but as
you saw it is now spinning on
day two. I’ve seen [Naseem] Shah
started bowling 90mph but we’ll see
how he goes on later on tomorrow
morning or afternoon.”Archer defended his team-mate
Buttler, whose place in the side is
coming under pressure because of his
form with both the bat and the
gloves this summer, and
backed the 29-year-old to
help England salvage
their innings tomorrow.
“I hold Jos in very
high regard,” Archer
said. “He is a really
talented batter, there is
no doubt him and Ollie
— I wont say they can dig
us out of a hole because I
don’t think we are in a hole at
the moment — but I think they can
put on a really big partnership and help
swing the momentum of the game in
our favour.”continued from back
24
Years since a
Pakistan opener had
scored a century in
England — Saeed Anwar,
who made 176 at the
Oval in 1996man of the series when he first played
for England in Sri Lanka in 2018 for
his all-round contributions.
When the spotlight fell on Buttler
ahead of the final Test against West
Indies after a long sequence of
innings without a fifty, the national
selector Ed Smith acknowledged that
there were alternatives, saying: “We
do have depth. That’s clear.”
Buttler responded to that mini-
crisis by scoring 67, his joint second-
highest Test score in two years, but it
is curious that that performance,
which might have freed him up, has
been followed by such a scruffy
display behind the stumps.
The team management, Root
included, stress Buttler’s value in
terms of the wider team culture and
the inspirational example he sets with
his fitness, selflessness and tactical
input, but if he cannot hold on to
chances and does not produce the
scores necessary for a middle-order
player — he averages 31.63 in 44
Tests with only one century —
then warm words cannot protect
him for ever.
The good news is he got through a
tricky 35 minutes with the bat last
night. When play resumes, he has
plenty to do both for his own cause
and that of his team’s. Root, Stokes
and Buttler go back a long way to the
England Under-19 side of ten years
ago, but if this triumvirate is to
survive as the engine room of the Test
XI, Buttler needs to up his game.
Today would be a great time to start.W
hatever the outcome
of this first Test
match with Pakistan
— and, right now,
England may happily
settle for a draw if it were offered to
them — the time may be coming for
Joe Root to take some tough
decisions.
The preferential treatment he
accords James Anderson and Stuart
Broad with regard to the new ball,
when there are potent alternatives
available, is one issue. Another is the
protective ring wrapped around Jos
Buttler when there is so much
evidence to suggest that he is falling
short as batsman-keeper.
Root has led England’s Test team
for three years and in many respects
has grown in authority and
confidence — particularly since last
year settling on a new, more patient
approach for his batsmen to follow —
but he has hardly won a reputation
for ruthlessness. It is striking that the
boldest and most controversial
selection call of recent times, Broad’s
omission for the series opener against
West Indies, was taken when Ben
Stokes was captain, not Root.
Buttler has kept wicket in 25 of
his 45 Test appearances and his
performance behind the stumps in
this game has been arguably his
worst. He granted Shan Masood two
let-offs, both off the bowling of Dom
Bess and both when Shan was 45 runs
into his eventual score of 156. That
makes them very expensive errors.
One was a difficult stumping chance
off a ball that bounced extravagantly
and hit Buttler on the left shoulder,
but the other was an outside edge
that should have been taken.
He also put down Yasir Shah on
five, again off Bess. This did not prove
costly but was the easiest of the three,
a regulation chance that most keeperswould have gobbled up. The fact it
went begging suggested a man whose
confidence was low, a suspicion
reinforced when Buttler had a chance
to effect a run out and his throw to
the bowler’s end was wildly
inaccurate.
Since starting a second spell as Test
wicketkeeper last winter, Buttler’s
glove-work had not attracted much
attention until he dropped Jermaine
Blackwood on 20 during the latter’s
match-winning innings of 95 on the
final day of the first Test against
West Indies in Southampton.
Leg-side catches are rarely
straightforward but this was the sort
of catch a really top-notch keeper
would have snaffled, as he would the
stumping chance off Shan.
Another factor against Buttler, 29,
continuing behind the stumps is his
lack of presence in the field. When
England next go to Australia, do they
really want a keeper as quiescent as
this, one who does so little cajoling of
his bowlers? They have jettisoned
keepers in the past for this
shortcoming and with good reason.
Fielding sides need to be kept on their
toes. Listen to how much noise the
Pakistani team made last night.
It is not as though there are no
alternatives. Ben Foakes, the reserve
keeper in the Test squad, is at Old
Trafford and has been practising his
drills with the wicketkeeping coach
Bruce French during the intervals.
Foakes, 27, is widely accepted as the
best gloveman in the country and wasEngland top order reeling
Buttler must deliver with
the bat after keeping errors
Simon Wildede
Buttler missed his third chance of the match when Shah nicked a ball from BessJAVIER GARCIA/BPI/REX4-1 Burns
Given not out; overturned on review12-2 Sibley
Given out lbw; review unsucessful12-3 StokesBowled past the outside edge by Abbas, main image
DAN MULLAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES