England v Pakistan Test Series 2026.

[andy]

Looking at the replays if Rizwan had been switched on he would have noticed it came off Lawrence's bat and would have been a simple catch!

Think Aamer Jamal needs to come in for Pakistan next test bit of pace offers batting and has to be better than Mohammed Ali....sloppy misfields from Pakistan and Usman now starting to for runs having bowled well last session....lead 91

[andy]

Edge falls short off Lawrence....slips are quite deep considering lack of pace in this attack...Rizwan needs to get everyone up closer

[Arthur Crabtree]

Nearly 100 lead with six wickets in hand. Pakistan will be struggling to see a way out of this.

[andy]

Usman Ali field makes no sense...silly point is pointless right now deep cover behind easy singles every ball, can't build any pressure because they're literally milking him

[andy]

Horror show fielding performance this from Pakistan summed up by usman's dismal attempt to stop that ball

[andy]

Think there's big issues here if play gets to 7:30 lead could easily get to 200+ tonight the way these two are going

[andy]

Where did they get Mohammed Ali from? He's crap!

[andy]

50 for Brook! Somehow he has cramp in the fingers as well! How is that possible it's 15 degrees there lol

[Arthur Crabtree]

190 ahead. That lead got very big very quickly.

Suddenly 8 down though. 2 golden ducks in 2 balls for Usman.

Brook misses out again.

[mikesiva]

Usman got his five fer!

[sussexpob]

I think we have seen over the last few days that Pakistan are not a great side. Everytime they have got a bit of sniff at an opportunity to press their case, they have then backed it up with very poor cricket. Yesterday at 100-2 they had won the battle and had the pressure on, Imam plays a idiotic shot, and they ended up 123-5 in no time. And today England barely had the lead, they dropped Lawrence, they dropped Brook after a couple of balls, and then what followed was just an hour of calamity cricket. If they had got both of those before they had starts, they would be looking at -100 plus runs as a deficit, and potentially a path back. But even assuming Smith doesn't go firing grenades around tomorrow morning and the target is only 200, they are going to do well to push this game much past tomorrow.

Need to put up some resistance second dig.

[sussexpob]

Talking purely in hypotheticals that are unlikely to happen, the one thing that favours Pakistan is the fact that even though we have had only about 1 day of cricket on this surface, its turning all over the place this evening already. If, and its a big if, Pakistan can knock Englands tail off without much further damage, and then get their own score to 325-350, by that stage will the pitch be turning right angles all over the place? 125-150 is defendable on a sandpit, thats for sure....

Still swing, seam and dark conditions overhead which makes scoring 300 plus difficult, but the pitch feels like one of those where Michael Clarke ended up taking 6/9 at the end.

Weird things can happen in 4th innings if the ball is raging out the footholes. Its important England kill the game with another few runs tomorrow morning.

[alfie]

This looks like a complete mismatch. At the risk of poking Pakistan into a 400 run second innings and demolishing England on day five I would expect this to finish fairly quickly and without the England bats having to do much or any work ...

Apart from a couple of brief periods (decent third wicket stand on day one , fairly tight spell by Abbas and Ali yesterday to Root and Cox) Pakistan just haven't turned up. Missing a good player or two - and some questionable selections ; but hard to see them injecting much interest into this series. Which at least gives Root a chance to settle comfortably into his revived captaincy task without too much pressure. What it will actually tell us about the abilities of the newer selections is open to question though.

Umpires have had a good match. Less so both captains/keepers/anyone involved in choosing reviews ! And what on earth were Duckett and Root thinking when given out onfield ?

Most spectacular moment of day two was the chap who spilled four pints of beer on his way back to his seat

[sussexpob]

All out with a lead of 238....

Will England need to bat again?

[alfie]

All out with a lead of 238....

Will England need to bat again?

I would seriously doubt it with three gone for 59 before lunch...