Hello and welcome to Telegraph Sport’s live coverage of the second day of the third and final Test between England and Pakistan, at Southampton’s Ageas Bowl.
After a largely washed out second Test, it was nice to finally have some cricket yesterday, wasn’t it? Especially in the manner with which it came. England looked to be in trouble initially with Rory Burns, Dom Sibley, Joe Root, and Ollie Pope all falling for a combined 60 runs, but Zak Crawley and Jos Buttler stepped to steady the ship. In fact, they didn’t so much as steady it, as send it careering at a rate of knots towards its target destination.
Crawley will resume today on 171, his highest-first class score coming at the same time as his first England Test century, while Buttler sits nicely on 87.
England’s wicket-keeping vice-captain has passed three figures just once before in Tests, two years ago against India, but has found form in the past couple of weeks and pulled his weight in this game-changing stand with Crawley, worth 205.
Crawley remained the main attraction, though, and was suitably awed as he reflected on his magnificent effort, two games after being recalled to the team.
His previous best in 11 attempts for England was a lively 76 against the West Indies last month and he has only made three first-class centuries for Kent in his county career.
“It’s the best feeling I’ve had on a cricket field, a great moment,” he said.
“It almost flashed before my eyes…my whole career so far. I could kind of see all the nets I’d done in the past and all the time I had gone on my own to hit some balls.”
At 332-4 and 1-0 up in the series, if these two can add a few more then the series looks about secured. What luxury it is to be able to say that on the second morning of a Test match with England batting first. A word for Pakistan, too, however; although at times yesterday their fielding left a lot to be desired, they do have class in their locker; the jaffa of a delivery from Naseem Shah that Mohammad Rizwan took delightfully with the gloves was evidence enough of that.