England v Pakistan: second Test, day two – live!

“Two things.” says Digvijay Yadav, sounding like a boss. “I am annoyed. This sport doesn’t help itself. (I haven’t got solutions. Just allow me to vent.) And they’ve linked the wrong email for you.” Ah, sorry. My people are onto it.

“I really can’t be arsed,” says Brian Withington, “to flesh out my old-gittery in full, so please feel free to perm and expand from the following. When will we ever learn – why oh why oh why – who writes these regulations – a (zero) capacity crowd short-changed – how do we expect to gain a new audience?

“Infuriated of Dorridge.”

86th over: Pakistan 223-9 (Rizwan 60, Naseem 1) Naseem nurdles a single first ball, in sharp contrast to his two predecessors. Rizwan, who moved into fourth gear when Yasir was out, decides it’s time for fifth. He gives Broad the charge and gets two for an off-wallop. Then there’s a half-volley, swinging away, and he’s seeing it well enough to cream it through the covers. Rizwan nicks a single off the last ball – but now they’re off again, because of the sodding light. Both sides would surely rather get on with the game.

This is as plumb as a very plumb plumb. Abbas reviews but it’s smacking into middle and leg. Seldom will see you a more useful score of 2.

85th over: Pakistan 215-8 (Rizwan 53, Abbas 2) A cup of tea and a change of plan: England now have a standard field for Rizwan, and Woakes is back in the corridor, which is surely better than the doghouse. Rizwan can’t get his single, so Abbas is staring down the barrel of an over from Broad.

On the subject of tea, here’s Sam Collier in Shetland. “Re Phil Sawyer’s link to Douglas Adams’ musings on correct tea preparation. I wonder if the great man was channelling this earlier work from Ginger Baker / Masters of Reality.”

Mid-85th over: Pakistan 215-8 (Rizwan 53, Abbas 2) Rizwan cuts Woakes for two, to take the partnership to 39. England badly need to break it. Where’s Ben Stokes when you need him? Now they go off for bad light, and that will be tea, with Pakistan having fun and England suddenly forgetting the simple virtues that put them on top an hour ago. The game is just where it should be, in the unsafe hands of Dr Ebb and Mr Flow.

84th over: Pakistan 213-8 (Rizwan 51, Abbas 0) To celebrate his two reprieves, Abbas gets off the mark! He edged Broad just short of Root, who winces and hopes he hasn’t broken a finger.

Umpire’s call – angled in, clipping the leg bail.

Not given, maybe going down…

Rizwan calls for a sneaky two and Abbas is struggling as Broad takes off the bails. But it’s not out! And that’s Rizwan’s fifty off 104 balls – worth at least 80 on a better pitch.

83rd over: Pakistan 208-8 (Rizwan 48, Abbas 0) Root is spreading the field for Rizwan, much to the distaste of Shane Warne. “Top of off stump and be patient, that’s all you have to do.” Rizwan helps himself to two leg byes and a flick off the hip to keep the strike.

“Thanks for the Gower of Song, OBO!” exclaims Pete Salmon (72nd over). “I now keep hearing Rizwan to the tune of Suzanne. And yes, I know that he’s half crazy, but that’s why I want to be here.”

82nd over: Pakistan 205-8 (Rizwan 47, Abbas 0) Rizwan, popping an edge off the shoulder of the bat, reckons he can run two. He’s sadly mistaken, so Mo Abbas has to get through five balls of Broad. By the end of the over, there are four slips and two short legs, but the last ball is an outswinger outside off, so Mo just lets it go.

81st over: Pakistan 204-8 (Rizwan 46, Abbas 0) Root entrust the new ball to Woakes, something he could do more often. There are more byes – four of them as Woakes gets his inswinger going too well, and Pakistan have made it to 200. Then Woakes goes the other way and concedes a wide, trying too hard to keep Rizwan off strike for the next over. Rizwan, unperturbed, dabs the seventh ball for a single to square leg.

80th over: Pakistan 198-8 (Rizwan 45, Abbas 0) Broad replaces Curran, tries a bouncer to Rizwan and concedes a bye as the ball takes off down the leg side. Not even Ben Foakes would have stopped that one. The new ball is imminent.

“Tower of Song, eh?” says Phil Sawyer. “Good man. You and I can sing it together at the socially distanced OBO karaoke (actually, is there any kind of OBO event that isn’t socially distanced?). Anyway, never mind those Yorkists. Douglas Adams wrote the definitive account of how to treat tea properly.”

79th over: Pakistan 197-8 (Rizwan 45, Abbas 0) And now Rizwan drives Woakes, on the up, to the extra-cover boundary. He has made every one of the 26 runs since Yasir was out.

78th over: Pakistan 192-8 (Rizwan 40, Abbas 0) Rizwan is having fun now, cutting a ball from Curran that is barely short for four, then playing a cute ramp over the slips for four more. He made his Test debut, Wasim Akram points out, as a batsman.

Meanwhile Rob Wilson has written an essay. “I think this is a good moment to sing the praises of cricketing rain. Cricket rain is not like other rain. Unless inveterate liars or mountebanks, we all have to admit that some of our happiest afternoons have been brought to us by cricketing rain (which somehow seems more hopeless and permanent in the afternoons). It taught us patience as children, the futility of all human desire as teenagers.

“But the strangest thing about cricketing rain is that it actually plays cricket. It gets wickets and scores runs. It can shape and define a game more than a tyro bowler or generational batter. It can sharpen two and a half meandering, mediocre days into a high-blood-pressure panicfest on the last day. It can extinguish some bowlers and ignite others. It might be the Limited Overs Era. When I was a kid, rain almost always meant a draw. Now cricket rain contributes. It stretches its hammies, grabs dull or predictable games by the scruff and rams them into drama and spectacle. Exactly what it did in the last game and may be doing in this.

“Let’s hear it for cricket rain.”

77th over: Pakistan 183-8 (Rizwan 31, Abbas 0) The old ball is swinging so much that there’s a case for not taking the new one right away. Woakes, tired of beating the bat, slips in a rare yorker, which Rizwan does well to spot. Rizwan shovels for two and pulls for a single, leaving Abbas to face one ball, an inswinger that he inside-edges safely enough.

76th over: Pakistan 180-8 (Rizwan 28, Abbas 0) Curran to Abbas: one 80mph bowler to another. Curran thinks he’s got him with an inswinger that thuds into the pad, but there was an inside edge, and England review in vain.

75th over: Pakistan 180-8 (Rizwan 28, Abbas 0) Rizwan, who had pushed to gully’s right, knew there wasn’t a run there. Now, joined by Mohammad Abbas, he changes gear, goes down the track and swipes Woakes through square leg for four. A bit more of that, please.

He’s gone now! The trouble with blocking all day long is that you don’t get much practice at running. Shaheen sets off for a mad run and, madder still, takes on Dom Sibley’s golden aim. It’s a direct hit, no replays required. And that’s the end of a 19-ball nothing.

74th over: Pakistan 176-7 (Rizwan 24, Shaheen 0) It was a lovely ball from Curran, full and juicy and curling away, bringing the stumps into play in Nasser-pleasing fashion.

A camera over Root’s shoulder, looking down through his legs, shows the ball touching the grass. And Shaheen is free to resume what could be one of the all-time epic ducks.

Shaheen finally nicks one, which goes straight to Root at first slip, so low that he can’t be sure he’s taken it cleanly. The umps confer and the soft signal is out.

73rd over: Pakistan 175-7 (Rizwan 23, Shaheen 0) Woakes replaces Anderson, by the same token. He beats Shaheen three times, by wide margins, and Nasser Hussain tells him off for not bringing the stumps into play.

72nd over: Pakistan 174-7 (Rizwan 22, Shaheen 0) Broad goes off, so he can come back with the new ball, and here is Sam Curran. Rizwan takes his single; Shaheen gathers four more dots.

“Since you mentioned the legendary Tower of Song by the genius L Cohen,” says Ian Batch, “I thought I’d amend the lyrics to another genius (slow day at work).

Well, my friends are gone and my hair is grey
I ache in the places where I used to play
And I’m crazy for cricket commentary but I’m not coming on
I’m just paying my rent every day in the Gower of Song

I said to Bob Willis, how lonely does it get?
Bob Willis hasn’t answered yet
But I hear him coughing all night long
Oh, a hundred floors above me in the Gower of Song

I was born like this, I had no choice
I was born with the gift of a golden cover drive
And 27 angels from the Great Beyond
They tied me to this table right here in the Gower of Song

So you can stick your little pins in that Ian Ward
I’m very sorry, baby, doesn’t look like me at all
I’m standing by the window where the light is strong
Ah, they don’t let SKY kill you, not in the Gower of Song…

Bob Willis would have chuckled at that.

71st over: Pakistan 173-7 (Rizwan 21, Shaheen 0) After being together for two and a half overs, these batsmen are already set in their ways: Rizwan takes a single, then Shaheen collects some dots. He has 11 of them so far.

70th over: Pakistan 172-7 (Rizwan 20, Shaheen 0) Shaheen Afridi has begun with some sturdy blocks, but Rizwan may have to be the man to lift Pakistan over 200. Which might be a decent score on this classic greentop.

69th over: Pakistan 171-7 (Rizwan 19, Shaheen 0) Anderson has three for 47, his best figures of 2020. His strike rate this summer, which a few minutes ago was three times Broad’s, is now 76 balls per wicket, to his old mate’s 28.

Yasir, no sir, you can’t fiddle about in the channel against Anderson’s outswinger on a day as dank as this. A regulation nick, a simple catch for Jos Buttler and that is Jimmy’s 593rd Test wicket.

68th over: Pakistan 170-6 (Rizwan 18, Yasir 5) You’re not going to believe this, but there’s been a bad ball. Broad dishes up a floaty half-volley, like Andy Caddick on an off day, and Yasir is good enough to give it the smack to the cover boundary that it was asking for. Later in the over, reverting to form, Yasir executes a failed leave. Much like the country he finds himself in at the moment.

Ha, thanks Rob and afternoon everyone. The lyrics of Creep and a Tesco clubcard, eh. For me, it would have to be Tower Of Song and a My Waitrose card.

67th over: Pakistan 166-6 (Rizwan 18, Yasir 1) Rizwan, on the drive, is beaten by a sumptuous nipbacker from Anderson. An even better delivery roars past Yasir’s outside edge later in the over.

Right, that’s it from me. Tim de Lisle will be with you for the next few hours. The England bowlers often talk about finishing a spell strongly before they hand over to the new man. With that in mind, I’d like to apologise to Tim for giving him a Jos Buttler dropped catch at the start of his stint. Please email him about other topics as well, or tweet @TimdeLisle.

66th over: Pakistan 164-6 (Rizwan 17, Yasir 0) Rizwan is dropped by Buttler! It was a really difficult chance, diving high to his left when Rizwan gloved a pull down the leg side.

“According to the Oxford English Dictionary the term ‘batter’ has been in use since 1783,” says Phillip Mallett, “when it appeared in a poem called Surrey Triumphant by one J. Duncombe: ‘At last Sir Horace took the field, / A batter of great might…’ Immortal words, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

I’ve got them on my office wall, along with the lyrics of Creep and my Tesco Clubcard number.

65th over: Pakistan 160-6 (Rizwan 14, Yasir 0) Anderson boings a grotesque lifter past Rizwan’s outside edge. It’s all fun and games for England at the moment, though it might not be when Shaheen Afridi and Mohammad Abbas start bowling.

“How to make a proper brew,” says Lorraine Reese. “You’re welcome.”

64th over: Pakistan 158-6 (Rizwan 12, Yasir 0) That was terrific stuff from Broad in tremendous English batting conditions. With Babar gone, the house could fall down apace.

“Hi Rob”, writes Tom Paternoster-Howe, “the link you posted to the list of England Test cricketers serves to highlight James Anderson’s longevity to a quite remarkable degree. I hadn’t realised he’d been capped earlier than current chief national selector Ed Smith or former Director of Cricket Andrew Strauss. Is there any other Test player who started playing before any of the selectors who could select them?”

That’s a cracking question. I’m pretty sure Cracka Hohns picked a load of them for Australia: Boon, Border, McDermott, Merv, Healy, Steve Waugh etc. His Test debut was in 1989 and I think he became part of the selection panel in 1993-94. And when Ray Illingworth became Chairman of Selectors at the age of 62, he did his damnedest to find somebody who had made their Test debut before him. In the end he had to reluctantly settle for recalling a 42-year-old John Emburey.

Stuart Broad takes the big wicket of Babar Azam. It was an excellent delivery: the line and length were immaculate, and it straightened just enough to square Babar up and shave the outside edge.

63rd over: Pakistan 158-5 (Babar 47, Rizwan 12) Anderson returns after lunch and starts with a rare no-ball, called by the third umpire. I just don’t know what’s going off up there.

62nd over: Pakistan 156-5 (Babar 46, Rizwan 12) Broad’s second ball after lunch is a beauty, fuller and snapping off the seam to beat Babar’s outside edge. Babar keeps the strike with a single off the last delivery.

“I don’t envy Alice her tea-making politics,” says Steve Tayler. “I hardly drink the stuff, so have no valid opinion. When I make tea for my wife, I put the milk straight in after the water. Sometimes this includes a trip to the fridge and back, and sometimes I’ve already done that. Then I fish the bag out, and that’s it. Caroline likes tea flavoured liquid I guess. My daughter Louise turns out to have been a builder in a previous existence, and insists on what seems like several minutes’ brewing. I understand there is a very helpful video on the subject, posted by an American woman.”

The players are back on the field. The lights are on but it’s still dry, and that’s good enough.

“We ought not to worry too much about ‘batters’ sounding like a Yorkshire pudding or frying wrap,” says John Starbuck. “After all, a wicket-keeper could be someone who maintains church gates, a fielder could be someone with a scythe and a bowler could be one of Francis Drake’s pals (or a hard hat).”

So what’s a silly point?

Play will resume at 2.10pm, though I fully expect the apocalypse to begin at 2:09:59.

61st over: Pakistan 155-5 (Babar 45, Rizwan 12) Curran moves around the wicket for the last over before lunch. Babar moves across his stumps to work a pair of twos; I think only six of 45 runs have been scored on the off side. Pakistan won’t mind that if he continues to bat with such serenity and authority. He has been superb, Mohammad Rizwan excellent, and Pakistan have had the better of the morning session.

“Good morning Rob,” says Adam Roberts. “This 6.30 start (for me) is much more user-friendly! I see there is a Covid spike in Orkney – hope you’re keeping safe. Don’t you think that my hero Randall – as well as Rhodes – tends to have his batting underestimated because of his brilliance in the field and his eccentricities?”

Randall was just before my time so I didn’t like to say, though I’m sure you’re right. I realise now that I know almost nothing about his batting apart from the 174, yet I can immediately picture a load of catches and especially run-outs. (And yes, all fine in this corner of Orkney, thanks!)

60th over: Pakistan 149-5 (Babar 40, Rizwan 11) There should be time for two more overs before lunch. Broad bowls the first, and bends his back to ram in a short that Babar avoids. He’s a class act, this chap: in his last 20 Test innings he averages 71.

“On the subject of fielding at short leg,” begins Ian Copestake. “Isn’t ‘spending time under the helmet’ a public-school thing?”

59th over: Pakistan 148-5 (Babar 40, Rizwan 10) Curran is swinging the ball both ways, and I suspect batting is nowhere near as comfortable as Babar and Rizwan are making it look. Their judgement, in attack and especially defence, has been excellent. Babar plays a defensive stroke off Curran that bounces up in the vague direction of the stumps, prompting him to shuffle back and guard his furniture. In the end it was nowhere near.

“I’m also struggling with the batsmen/batters thing,” says Bob O’Hara. “Partly because ‘batters’ sounds a bit too Australian, but also because it makes them sound like a piece of haddock.”

Okay, how about willow-wielders?

58th over: Pakistan 147-5 (Babar 40, Rizwan 9) We still talk about the Fab Four of world cricket, even though Joe Root was asked to leave the group a couple of years ago. The ICC rankings have Babar at No6, though I think he’s closest to the Triffic Three of Smith, Kohli and Williamson. Marnus Labuschagne hasn’t done it for long enough yet.

57th over: Pakistan 147-5 (Babar 40, Rizwan 9) Rizwan misses an attempted hook at a leg-side bouncer from Curran. Not much is happening, which is good for Pakistan given the friendliness of the bowling conditions. If it stays like this, 200 wouldn’t be a terrible first-innings score.

“Whilst following the lack of play today over a leisurely breakfast, my boyfriend and I got into a heated conversation,” writes Alice from London. “I poured hot water over my tea bag and approximately three seconds later added milk. He told me I was ‘a waking nightmare’. I did wait a minute before removing the teabag. He waited a full two minutes before removing the teabag and then adding milk. We are now driving to Hastings to visit some antique shops. He won’t speak to me. He insists it isn’t about the tea. I hope it’s the lack of play.”

I’m not a tea person so can’t really comment, but I was under the impression that even the fastest food outlets gave the teabag at least five seconds alone with the hot water.

56th over: Pakistan 146-5 (Babar 39, Rizwan 9) Broad replaces Woakes and starts with a quiet over, just a single from it. Pakistan have batted with calm authority this morning, Babar in particular.

55th over: Pakistan 145-5 (Babar 38, Rizwan 9) Sam Curran replaces Jimmy Anderson. His first over includes some encouraging inswing to the right-handers; when that is happening, Curran becomes infinitely more dangerous.

“Has short leg always been the job given to the newest/youngest member of the team?” says Gary Bartley. “A role to endure until some other young buck comes along? If so, who are the England team’s most famous short leg graduates? I seem to remember Ian Bell short legging for a while before rising up the pecking order. And Pope will surely graduate too in time. But how many others have successfully passed through?”

That’s generally been the case, though sometimes it goes to the old ex-captain (Graham Gooch in 1993, for example, or Sir Alastair Cook in 2018). Ian Bell took some great catches at short leg during the 2005 Ashes, and many future captains – Strauss, Cook, Root – spent time under the helmet earlier in their careers. Some, like David Boon and Gus Logie, are so good that they keep the role for most of their career. I suspect James Taylor would have been the same had he stayed in the team.

53rd over: Pakistan 142-5 (Babar 38, Rizwan 7) A maiden from Anderson to Babar, who looks relatively comfortable out there. It feels like the kind of the pitch (or rather overhead conditions) on which you are never in, yet Babar has looked in control.

“I do find the inconsistency around Chris Woakes fascinating,” says Glyn. “If Root doesn’t bowl him, then it’s because he doesn’t rate him highly enough, so people say. Then when he does bowl him (like now), there’s criticism because Broad isn’t bowling. It does feel that Woakes and Root are a bit in a no-win situation here.”

I should stress that I wasn’t criticising the decision, I just felt it was surprising given the seniority of Broad and Anderson and especially the influence they have had on selection this summer. On the subject of Woakes, I’d love to know what happened during last year’s Ashes, when Root seemed to lose faith in him pretty quickly. Had Woakes bowled in that series as he has this summer and in 2018, England would probably have won it. Maybe Woakes was just struggling with his knee.

52nd over: Pakistan 142-5 (Babar 38, Rizwan 7) Woakes goes wider on the crease to beat Rizwan with a snorting outswinger. Masterful stuff.

“Chris Drew’s email prompted me to look up stats for first class wickets,” says Tom Wein. “The numbers are ridiculous – as is the gap between older and modern cricketers. Wilfred Rhodes took 4,204 first class wickets. That’s three times as many as Warne (1319). The top five first class wicket takers all played their cricket before the second war. They’re also all English – presumably because no one else’s cricket was considered worth labelling as first class until 1947.”

Yeah, it’s the same with most runs, or a hundred hundreds. Ramps was the last to reach that milestone in 2008; there is precisely 0.06 per cent chance it will ever happen again.

51st over: Pakistan 142-5 (Babar 38, Rizwan 7) Anderson is a touch too straight to Babar, who flicks him through midwicket for four like it’s the easiest thing in the world. When he gets his line just right later in the over, the ball zips past Babar’s attempted back-foot drive.

“Many years ago I played a game for the Duke of Cambridge pub against the adjacent Royal Military School of Music at Kneller Hall near Twickenham rugby ground,” says Matt O’Driscoll, who can also provide the date, weather conditions and what was No1 in the pop charts if required. “The pub landlord, an Irishman named Pat Madden, came out to bat in his first ever game of cricket. He held the bat as I believe a hurley is always held by a right hander, with the left hand below the right. His first ball was a full toss and it disappeared for six over cow corner, after which I think he may have retired to finish his drink and/or prepare for opening time.”

50th over: Pakistan 138-5 (Babar 34, Rizwan 7) Rizwan cuts Woakes towards third man for three. The ball is still doing a bit, and Woakes smiles when his last delivery swerves past Rizwan’s lunging drive.

“Regarding the batsmen-batters discussion: I’m fairly sure that ‘batters’ was the common term in the 18th century,” says D. A. Ibbotson. “Perhaps cricket is returning to its roots, time is a flat circle etc. etc.”

49th over: Pakistan 134-5 (Babar 33, Rizwan 4) A maiden from Anderson to Babar, who is beaten by the last two deliveries. The first was a loose cut stroke, the second a defensive push at a gorgeous outswinger.

“Hallo Rob,” says Peter Haining. “Before anyone asks…”

48th over: Pakistan 134-5 (Babar 33, Rizwan 4) Chris Woakes continues, which is a slight surprise given the existence of Stuart Broad. Babar takes him off middle stump for four, flicking wristily through square leg. Beautiful shot. Another clip off the pads later in the over brings three more.

47th over: Pakistan 127-5 (Babar 26, Rizwan 4) Jimmy Anderson is often unplayable in these conditions. Babar Azam does the sensible thing, taking a quick single to get down the other end, and Rizwan survives the remainder of the over.

46th over: Pakistan 126-5 (Babar 25, Rizwan 4) Mohammad Rizwan plays out the last two balls of the over.