England consolidated their position in the third and final cricket Test against Pakistan thanks to Zak Crawley’s career-first double century (267) and his record partnership with Jose Butler (152). On the second day of the Southampton Test, the hosts declared their first innings on Saturday by scoring 583/8 and kept Pakistan’s score at 24 for 3 wickets.
Pakistan had a very poor start and the team lost the wickets of both their openers Shaan Masood (04) and Abid Ali (01) till the fifth over. Babar Azam also returned to the pavilion after scoring 11 runs. All three wickets went to pacer James Anderson (3 wickets for 13 runs). Anderson has completed 596 wickets, he is just 4 wickets away from his 600 wickets.
Shaan Masood (04) was lbw by Anderson in the third over. In his next over, Anderson also caught Abid in the slip by Dom Sibley and Pakistan scored 11 for two. Star batsman Babar looked comfortable during his innings of 26 balls, but Anderson lbw him on the last ball of the day. Captain Azhar Ali was playing after scoring four runs at the end of the day’s play. Pakistan’s team is still behind by 559 runs, with seven wickets remaining.
Earlier, Crawley scored 267 runs with the help of 34 fours and a six in his innings of 393 balls before being stumped off by the ball of improvised spinner Ashad Shafiq.
Playing in his eighth Test, Crawley touched the 100-run mark for the first time in his career and made it to the top 10 in terms of England’s most individual innings. He left behind giants like Geoffrey Boycott, current captain Joe Root and Ben Stokes.
Crowley shared a 359-run partnership for the fifth wicket with Jos Buttler (152 runs), England’s biggest partnership for the fifth wicket. The duo left behind Keith Fletcher and Tony Greig, who shared a 254-run partnership against India at Mumbai’s Brabourne Stadium in February 1973, also the sixth-largest partnership for any wicket for England.
Crawley and Butler came to bat together after lunch on the first day when England were in trouble after losing four wickets for 127 runs. Crowley completed a double century in 331 balls with fours off Nasim Shah. He went on to play ahead of 171 runs on the second day.
Fawad Alam caught Butler on his own ball. Butler (152) hit 13 fours and 2 sixes in the innings of 311 balls. Prior to this, he had scored 106 runs, hitting his last century against India two years ago. He was then playing as a specialist batsman.
In England’s innings Chris Woakes scored 40, Stuart Broad scored 15 and Dom Bess scored 27 not out, with Pakistan’s Shaheen Shah Afridi, Yasir Shah and Fawad Alam taking 2-2 wickets each, while Nasim Shah and Ashad Shafiq got one. – Got a success.
England started the day with 332 runs for four wickets. The team is leading 1-0 in the three-match series and their eyes are set on winning the first Test series against Pakistan in the last 10 years