3rd Test: England v Pakistan at Edgbaston

Thank goodness for that. I have no fingernails left. What a fightback from England. This has been an enthralling series and a testament to the greatness of Test match cricket.

That was a brilliant team performance from England. They are really starting to gel together.

Teams with a 100+ first innings lead have a microscopic 3% losing percentage. The odds were strongly stacked against England, especially after being rattled out for under 300 in the first innings. Woakes picking up the wicket of Azhar Ali on the final ball of the second day really changed this match.

England's bowlers were fantastic after lunch. Jimmy and Mo really turned the screws bowling in tandem. Jimmy got the ball reversing and Mo had the ball drifting. Once they removed Azhar and Younis, the rest of the seamers tore through Pakistan's vulnerable middle order. Broad, Finn and Woakes were disciplined with their lines and the pressure took its toll.

This will be a disheartening loss for Pakistan. They were cruising at the lunch interval with only one wicket down and still an outside chance to pull of an unlikely win. Despite the loss, Pakistan will take heart with the performance from Sami Aslam. They have found themselves a genuine opening batsman. The difference between Sami Aslam and Shan Masood is night and day. Young Sami looked very assured and organized. He knows where his off stump is and showed good judgement (his eventual dismissal excepted). He has big potential.

Trinidaddy made a salient point in the shoutbox. West Indies middle order put on an inspired fight in the 4th innings of the 2nd Test at Sabina Park. Their discipline was rewarded by batting out the day for a draw. By contrast, Pakistan's middle order were very ordinary (and that is being kind) here at Edgbaston. The pitch was very flat and offered almost no assistance to the bowlers.

***

Moeen takes home the Man of the Match award honours. The sign of a good team is having different members of the side step up with a match winning performance on a match to match basis and not be reliant upon on the same 2 or 3 players. This is a very good all round side. The job is not done yet though. With a short turn around before the Oval match, England will need to come out strong again in four days time.

Some Pakistanis are alleging ball tampering:

Invalid consumer key/secret in configuration

www.cricketcountry.com/news/pakistan-vs-...all-tampering-480994

While I'm obviously pleased by the fightback from England, I'm not sure that they deserved the win but a lot of times in sport the team who wins doesn't always deserve it. The Pakistani team will have a lot of questions to answer I think and while it was a good performance from England to get the win, I'm not sure if it was more a fact that Pakistan lost the game rather than England winning it.

I am curious as to why you think England didn't deserve to win? The fightback they showed over the last 3 days was absolutely deserving of a win. They bowled beautifully on the third day to rattle Pakistan out cheaply and then dug in and batted with great determination on day 4. On the final day, they made great use of the reverse swing and drift on offer and put pressure on a Pakistan middle order that is prone to collapse.

England have been long thought of as being a front runner. They play well when bossing the first day of play, but cower and succumb to pressure when behind in a Test. Yet, in this Test, England stood strong and put together an inspired fightback from a position of great peril. This was one of their better come from behind wins in many recent years. It was also arguably their best bowling performance on a flat track since 2011.

Sohail Khan also got the ball to reverse in the morning session, and it wasn't as though Jimmy and Broad were getting the ball to reverse a country mile, it was the most gentle of reverse swing, nothing untoward, IMO.

I wonder what Waqar has to say about this?