The last time England played a Test match immediately after one of their drinking farragos, they handed the game to New Zealand, and ultimately the series.
A weather-shortened first-day effort here of 248 for nine – reliant on fighting half-centuries from Jordan Cox and Jamie Smith – may yet prove competitive against a team as brittle as Pakistan, but it has at the very least opened the door on a nightmarish repeat.
Joe Root had sensibly brought forward his captain’s pre-match press conference to Tuesday in a bid to unburden himself as soon as possible on the subject of Brydon Carse’s arrest in Derby, and still have time to prepare for the actual cricket.
Yet the news, emerging late on Wednesday, that Derbyshire police were now investigating an assault charge connected to the incident meant Lord’s was still abuzz with England’s haplessness even as groundstaff mopped up after morning rain.
Eoin Morgan, their World Cup-winning captain, looked earnest as he told Sky viewers: ‘Clearly words aren’t getting through.’ Stuart Broad, his stature up a notch after the unveiling in the Long Room of a portrait of him and Jimmy Anderson, insisted: ‘There’s a real lack of leadership in this team.’
It was amid this atmosphere of tut-tutting and head-shaking that Root, who has done his best to impose calm on the chaos, lost a toss so crucial it had Babar Azam grinning from ear to ear.
Joe Root lost a crucial toss at Lord’s on Thursday that left Babar Azam grinning from ear to ear
Emilio Gay was caught behind for just eight, taking his average down to 22 in his fifth Test
Jordan Cox fell to a collector’s item – a world-class piece of Pakistan fielding
At Headingley, even before they had lost by an innings, they had been damned as the worst Pakistan team to visit these shores in 50 years. Babar, back from a hand injury, knew this was their best chance for an instant riposte.
And when Mohammad Abbas, who has made a living of exploiting such conditions, single-handedly made it 36 for three, the thought occurred that England might yet create the wrong kind of history. Having never previously lost a three-match series at home after going 1–0 up, might they now do so twice in the same summer?
Emilio Gay had been first to go, brilliantly caught behind down the leg side by Mohammad Rizwan for eight – an innings that took his Test average to 22, and failed to quell concerns about his suitability.
Ben Duckett was trapped lbw, as he had been at Headingley, for 17, before Root succumbed in familiar fashion. With Rizwan up to the stumps to dissuade him from batting outside his crease, he was pinned by Abbas for four, having already been dropped in the slips on one.
His eighth lbw dismissal in his last 11 innings was perhaps his most worrying: England’s greatest run-scorer seems no closer to working out how to combat a tactic flagged well in advance and now deployed against him and Harry Brook as a matter of course.
The innings stumbled before partially recovering. Brook was bowled for 15 by one from Mohammad Ali that came back down the slope, before Dan Lawrence belatedly thought better of a single to midwicket, and was run out for 17 by Shan Masood, who had dropped him badly on 10.
At 120 for five, with the Lord’s pitch slow but betraying no signs of the variable bounce that had earned a demerit point from the ICC following the Test against New Zealand, Pakistan had visions of batting before stumps.
Instead, England’s innings was propped up by two players who may, in the not too distant future, be competing for the wicketkeeping spot.
Cox looked more assured than any of his top-order colleagues, including Root, as four wickets tumbled before lunch, and went on to a second half-century in two innings at No 3 before he fell to a collector’s item – a world-class piece of Pakistan fielding, as Salman Agha, their captain at Headingley but now reduced to a substitute by Babar’s return, clung on one-handed at second slip off Khurram Shahzad.
Cox looked more assured than any of his top-order colleagues, and went on to a second half-century in two innings at No 3
Jamie Smith played some booming drives en route to England’s first-innings top score of 61
Smith, meanwhile, played some booming drives en route to 61, only to be beaten by a nipbacker from the Mohammad Ali.
If Cox confirmed the class that was evident during his 73 at Headingley, biding his time during a quiet post-lunch period in which no boundary was scored for 93 balls to counterattack with panache before tea, Smith overcame a scratchy start to play the innings England – and he – needed.
On one, he edged the laft-arm spin of Usman Ali between keeper and slip. On 15, he should have been caught behind by Mohammad Rizwan after poking at Mohammad Ali, only for the ball, bizarrely, to pass inside the wicketkeeper’s outstretched glove.
Neither near miss allayed fears about his judgment outside off stump, but as Pakistan overpitched in search of movement, Smith parked himself on the front foot. Because of the conditions, his other weakness, against the short ball, simply wasn’t tested.
Still, on a day when Pakistan probed with an intensity that was lacking in Leeds, Smith’s highest Test score for over year was the difference between implosion and a total that gives England a chance.
Mohammad Ali bowled Ollie Robinson for a duck with his third lethal nipbacker of the innings, before Abbas picked up his fourth when Jofra Archer missed a heave, and will be eyeing the honours board when play resumes.
But Gus Atkinson hit out judiciously for an unbeaten 34 before bad light called a halt at 6.07pm, and England will tell themselves that Pakistan managed no more than 171 and 135 at Headingley.
Even so, they will have to bowl well to ensure their superiority in that game was not just another false dawn. After everything that has happened this summer, the alternative does not bear thinking about.
