Star of the show: Pakistan spinner Abrar Ahmed shone on his debut against England
(Picture: Getty Images)A phenomenal performance from Pakistan’s 24-year-old debutant spinner Abrar Ahmed dominated a day of Test cricket played at breakneck speed here today.
Ahmed finished with seven for 114, as England were bowled out for 281 on the stroke of tea on the opening day of the Second Test before their opponents finished the day on 107-2.
At one stage, Ahmed had claimed all seven of the wickets to fall and was on course to become just the fourth player in Test history to take all 10 wickets in an innings.
A leg-spinner with a touch of mystery about him, he has been one of the leading bowlers in Pakistan’s domestic cricket this season, and his omission from the First Test had been a point of controversy in local circles. And he soon proved why, as with his fifth ball on the international stage, he clean-bowled Zak Crawley with a perfect googly for 19.
Of his seven wickets, three of them, including that of Crawley’s, would be the result of brilliant bowling. Joe Root fell LBW for 8 to a classical leg-break that pitched on leg-stump, beat Root’s outside edge and struck him on the back pad, before Ben Stokes was clean-bowled after the lunch break with a googly that had the England captain lunging into no-man’s land.
Ahmed’s figures were the 12th best in history for a bowler on debut, but he would not have it all his own way, as England continued their assault on Pakistan’s bowlers, scoring at five-and-a-half an over throughout their innings. Their score of 281 is below par, but not disastrous on a surface giving ample assistance to the spinners.
Ben Duckett and Ollie Pope both registered half-centuries as the pair swept and reverse-swept relentlessly to take England to 117-1 off 18 overs before the Ahmed show commenced.
Both Duckett and Pope fell either side of Root’s dismissal, each dying by the reverse sweep that they had lived by. First, Duckett was given LBW, before Pope was caught at point.
Harry Brook scored nine before he was Ahmed’s fifth wicket before lunch, as England went into the break at 180-5. After lunch, Stokes and Will Jacks became the sixth and seventh of his victims, Jacks falling for 31, struck on the pad attempting a sweep.
But just as talk turned to the notion that Ahmed could be en route to the history books, Zahid Mahmood spoiled the party with two wickets in two balls. First, Ollie Robinson skied a ball to mid-on, then Jack Leach departed in comical fashion attempting an audacious first-ball reverse-sweep. James Anderson was the last to depart, again to Mahmood, but not before Mark Wood contributed with a handy 36 not out.
In reply, England would claim the wickets of openers Imam-ul-Haq and Abdullah Shafique as Anderson and Leach took one wicket each. Pakistan captain Babar Azam remained not out on 61.
