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A new day didn’t change the fortune of Pakistan team as they toiled hard for almost two sessions to break the overnight partnership. Crawley and Buttler continued in the same vein as yesterday and kept on piling runs over after over. In the process both of them achieved their personal milestones of double ton and century. With each run they added, partnership records were being broken and created. Under the pressure of the mammoth total of 583, Pakistan lost 3 quick wickets for just 24 to make the day even worse for them.

Crawley scores a double ton

With only 6th over of the day in progress, rain interrupted the play for about an hour and more than 10 overs from the day was lost. After the rain interval, Crawley and Buttler continued their onslaught. Crawley in particular was more severe once he got past his double century with a streaky shot that went past vacant slip region to the boundary. He played shots all round the ground, if bowled to his pads, he would flick it, if given width, he would drive it beautifully both on front and back foot, and even used both orthodox and reverse sweep to good effect against the spinners. To get to his 250, he came across the wicket and flicked Abbas for a lofty four. Later, he was stumped off part-timer Asad Shafiq, an off spinner bowled from round the stumps that moved further away and beat the advancing batsman to be stumped by Rizwan. Crawley went back to the pavilion amidst ovation and acknowledgement from his supporters and opponents as well.

England declare at 583/8

After tea break Buttler too followed Crawley but not before making his highest first class score of 152. After the rain break Buttler didn’t take much time to reach to his century after a scare at 99 -a caught behind given by Umpire, but reversed on review. It was his second test ton, first as a wicketkeeper. His 359 run partnership is 5th highest on the all-time 5th wicket partnerships and highest for England vs Pakistan. Buttler had a tame dismissal, being caught and bowled by Fawad Alam. Woakes(40), Bess(27) and Broad(15) added few quick runs and with 583 on board, Root decided to call his batsmen back and have a go at Pakistan batsmen in the last hour of play.

Anderson’s 3 wickets left Pak gasping for breath at the start of their innings. Source: @ICC

Horror start for Pakistan

Anderson was in his elements, nearing the milestone of 600 test wickets. Pakistan lost both their openers in quick succession, Masood being leg before while Abid caught at slip. It became bad to worse for Pakistan as at the end of the day they lost their most prolific batsman Babar Azam again to Anderson- an inseamer that caught him right in front of the wicket. Pakistan only had 24 on the board. Azhar Ali will now have to play a captain’s knock, in support of his batsmen, to save his team from what could be an innings defeat.

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