Pakistan took a 1-0 series lead in this tightly fought Test match at the iconic Lords cricket ground. Pakistan were batting first in this game and managed to score 339 runs with Misbah being the highest scorer. For a long time he has been a great player for Pakistan, and steps up to the occasion when they have needed him. Also as captain he definitely played a captains knock in their first innings by scoring 114 runs he definitely helped his team to a decent score. For England Woakes was the standout bowler with 6 wickets, as the England bowling attack gave it there all.
In the England first innings they didn’t fair that badly getting to 272 runs but once again Cook and Root were the two batsman who had scored the runs and were helping the team. Without Cook and Root in the England line up I think they would have definitely struggled in this match as the Pakistan bowling attack is quite a strong one. As Cook and Root have saved England plenty of times and this was once again the case in their first innings, they both led from the front and the rest of the batting line-up just collapsed. Yasir Shah was the standout bowler for Pakistan he picked up 6 wickets he was bowling very well at Lords.
Pakistan were batting once again so they had a bit of a lead and they just built upon that lead. Pakistan’s second innings was very mixed with them losing wickets at regular intervals, and this time it was Shafiq and Ahmed who helped Pakistan reach 215 runs. The rampant England bowling attack were strong as always and making Pakistan fight for all the runs, as they wanted to keep the total to chase down to a reasonable total, but Pakistan set them a total of 282 runs to chase. Which sounded like a decent total to chase.
Now it was England’s game to lose and they didn’t start off to well, by losing Cook, Hales and Root early but the England middle order stepped up Ballance, Bairstow and Vince got stuck in and really tried to save the match for their side and each got into the 40’s but got out soon after. They were digging deep and fighting in this match and they did not want to lose this match, but the Pakistan bowling attack were doing well in capturing the wickets at the right time. Once again Yasir Shah came into the spotlight, he claimed 4 of the England wickets. He had got 10 wickets in this match at such an iconic venue.
Pakistan won the match by 75 runs, they were jubilant in this victory and they celebrated by doing press-ups a different celebration nonetheless, but they had secured victory which was the main thing. England were not happy with their performance they had their highlights but need to go back and analyse where they went wrong, and come back stronger in the second Test match. Which they will as you cannot keep England quiet for long especially on home turf.
