Watch cricket video highlights of England tour of Pakistan 2024. First test between Pakistan and England. Venue of the match will be Multan.
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After a hectic break in which England lost captain Ollie Pope for a golden duck and skipper Ben Duckett to injury, Salman Agha became Pakistan’s third century, solidifying their strong position in Multan and leaving the touring team struggling to get any momentum in the opening game of the series. After taking the catch to remove Pakistan’s final man, Abrar Ahmed, who had been given two lives in the previous two overs, Duckett appeared to have suffered a painful blow to his left thumb.
As a result, when England started their innings halfway through the evening session, Pope and Zak Crawley were walking out together. Aamer Jamal struck with one hand to dismiss Pope after just two balls, igniting Pakistan even more and forcing England’s No. 4, Joe Root, to the middle of the second over. As usual, Crawley responded with a riposte. Crawley had been out of the Sri Lanka series due to a fractured finger. He took Shaheen Afridi for a brace of fours to conclude the seamer’s first over after slamming his sixth ball, which came from Afridi, to the boundary.
He repeated the feat with Naseem in the next over. As a result, spin was used early on, and Crawley made another declaration of purpose when Abrar’s opening over ended in a run of eleven. for taking Abrar for a leg-side six in the eleventh over to take England’s fifty, Crawley kept going for Pakistan’s legspinner, who had taken 11 wickets in his maiden match against England two years prior. Abrar’s first stats were 4-0-31-0 after two more fours down the ground, but Crawley reached a half-century off 55 balls with a ninth boundary, clipped through midwicket off Naseem.
After three hopeful leg-before-wicket claims, Root slipstreamed Crawley to the end of an uninterrupted partnership of 92 overs, but otherwise, there was little to inspire Pakistan’s attack, as had been the case for England throughout 149 overs in the field. As Duckett’s availability became more likely later in the innings, England’s position appeared somewhat more stable. Nevertheless, Pakistan gave the proceedings a strong imprint on that day. Naseem’s appearance as nightwatcher helped a little bit as Saud Shakeel guided the innings throughout the initial forays.
Stifling England’s mini-fightback from the first evening. After that, Salman went about consolidating the lead and amassing his third Test century within 108 balls, putting Pakistan in a position where they could potentially control the game, even against Brendon McCullum’s Bazballers. Jack Leach finished with three wickets for 160, while Brydon Carse claimed his maiden Test wickets. All six of England’s bowlers had something to show for their efforts. They mainly kept at it in the field, but there were concerns that five-and-a-half sessions in the scorching heat of Multan might take a toll.
Jamie Smith squandering a straightforward opportunity to stump Abrar and Gus Atkinson then dropping the No. 11 after he had skied a chance to midwicket. England managed to take two wickets in every session, but Shakeel and Salman made sure Pakistan would not lose the solid base that Shan Masood and Abdullah Shafique’s centuries on the opening day of play had established. Salman’s strategic attack on England’s spinners, in particular, helped sustain the hosts’ momentum as the innings went on in fits and turns.
After lunch, Salman did not have a run in but struck the first ball through the covers for four runs, raising the profile of Pakistan’s 400 and indicating his personal aspirations. After Pakistan had only gained 69 runs in the morning, he was obviously in the desire to get the scoreboard humming as he came down the track in the same over to knock Leach through long-off. In a four-over session, he took England’s most experienced spinner for four fours and two sixes, making his duel with Leach an entertaining spectacle.
However, things nearly went wrong for Salman, as his first sixes came dangerously close to getting him fired: As he backpedaled towards long-off and tossed the ball up as he went out of bounds to then return and finish the catch, Chris Woakes felt he had done a nice job. However, following a protracted discussion and analysis of many video angles, Chris Gaffaney, the third umpire, determined that Woakes’ foot had made contact with the ground outside the rope during his second ball claim. Even in their early collaboration, Shakeel had been happy to take the back seat.
After joining forces with Salman for another fifty runs, he was dismissed by a sharp spin from Shoaib Bashir, an uncommon unplayable ball in what has been a difficult day for the 20-year-old. With the ball bouncing off Shakeel’s back leg and into Root at slip, Bashir grabbed hold of the outside edge as it drifted into leg stump from around the wicket. Jamal was easily taken down by Carse, but it was the signal for Salman to appear on a different counter with Afridi at his side.
After reaching his fifty from 71 balls, he took Bashir for a reverse sweep and ran him down, then added two more fours from Leach and a single to reach 500. Pope included a lbw appeal that was demonstrated to have pitched outside leg in between, adding another burnt review to the pile. At tea, Pakistan was 515 for 8, and Salman watched carefully before hitting Leach long-on to push the score into the nineties. After scoring 59 runs during a ninth-wicket partnership of 85, he completed his century with a sweeping single. At that time, Afridi bowled him after he mishandled a slog at Leach.
England were beginning to look a bit frayed, and their troubles had began in the morning against the unusual batting powerhouse of Naseem, who hit his greatest score in any format of the tournament – 33 from 81 balls – and held up a tenacious assault for more than 90 minutes. His efforts, which included three sixes in a stand of 64 with Shakeel, made sure that the visitors would have no easy way back into the game.
England was expecting to go into the lower middle-order with a ball barely five overs old, but Naseem was in a clever, cheeky mood. After Atkinson struck him on the helmet, he did not back down and proceeded to target Bashir and Leach, landing a spectacular inside-out blow over further cover for his third six. When the stand reached fifty, Naseem was surpassing his senior partner in runs by the time he was eventually Carse’s first Test wicket, falling victim to an edge to leg slip that started a round-the-wicket onslaught.
