As Pakistan wickets tumbled on a rain-affected third day, sections of the capacity crowd sang Jerusalem and even the bugler, who provided famous orchestration during the series with Australia, struck up with a rendition of The Great Escape.
If England avoid defeat here a great escape it truly will be. Spirited though they were, they still conceded a first-innings deficit of 331 and on the last two occasions they trailed by so many — in Lahore in 2005 and at Lord’s in 2003 — they sank to innings defeats and a repeat here remains a possibility. A massive task confronts them today, and hopefully tomorrow.
Their prospects were last night dealt a big blow when Marcus Trescothick nibbled at a cleverly angled ball in Mohammad Asif’s second over and was caught behind for four. If this was a serious setback for the team, it was another hammer blow for the Somerset left-hander, who has had a thoroughly miserable match: two single-figure scores for only the second time in 76 Tests and putting down Mohammad Yousuf five runs into his 128.
This has been Trescothick’s least-productive home season for England, with 323 runs in seven Tests at an average of 26.9. Five months after his breakdown in India, he can be assured of every support from the management, but unless he makes significant runs in the one-dayers with Pakistan or in the Champions Trophy, then his place must come into question. As with Geraint Jones, his run drought can only be ignored for so long.
Thankfully Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook, who could yet open in the first Ashes Test if Trescothick’s slide continues, played safely through to the close.
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Fears that this audition for the battle of Brisbane was destined to have all the star quality of a gathering of Pop Idol rejects were quashed as Pakistan’s last seven wickets fell for 125 in little more than two hours. Four were taken by Harmison, who raised his haul for the series to 20, his best since 2004. He was well supported by Matthew Hoggard and Sajid Mahmood, whose final, hostile spell affirmed that he could yet be an honest substitute for Simon Jones. But the question begged by Harmison’s vim and vigour was why he couldn’t produce it 36 hours earlier.
Pakistan were all out for 504 when Harmison claimed their last two wickets in three balls. The last man to go was Asif, who is clearly a better bowler than he is batsman. This was his fifth duck in a row, equalling the Test record.
A heavy defeat here would be an unthinkable way of signing off ahead of the Ashes. Were it to happen, England would argue that it wasn’t a sure sign of things to come — they won in style in Jamaica three years ago after suffering the third-heaviest innings defeat in their history in Colombo — but this game has already shattered a few assumptions, certainly for Strauss, for whom a third win could have sealed the captaincy in Australia.
Let’s be honest: mental-strength wise, England have been pretty awful since the Ashes. Understandable perhaps, but they have taken their eye off the ball time after time (almost literally in the case of the errant fielders), whether through the money that’s flooded in, their Buckingham Palace gongs or the thought of the Ashes return. The way things have shaped, whoever plays Henry V on the eve of Agincourt will have to give one hell of a speech to get his men relaxed but focused come the Gabba in November.
The main blemish on England’s copybook yesterday was putting down two further catches to go with the five missed off Hoggard earlier. This time the culprits were Hoggard himself and Ian Bell, who made a good effort to cling onto a half-chance in the gully. Overall, though, there was no doubt that England looked altogether more purposeful.
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The rain breaks helped to the extent that they allowed Hoggard and Harmison to refresh themselves and keep going, unchanged for 22 overs, until 3.25pm. Harmison began indifferently but, perhaps galvanised by the criticism of his efforts on the first two days, laboured manfully to relocate the magic.
Inzamam-ul-Haq looked far more at ease than Yousuf, who never regained his fluency of the previous day in adding 13 in a further 46 balls. Inzamam tucked into Harmison hungrily whenever he dropped short or overpitched, but bit by bit Harmison rediscovered his game. In the fourth session of play that began at 2.45pm, genteel Dr Jekyll had been transformed into nasty Mr Hyde.
In his first over of this passage of play, he worked over the Pakistan captain in classic fashion, rapping Inzamam on the pad with a fullish delivery before a shorter ball located the outside edge and flew high into Strauss’s hands at second slip. Moments later, Yousuf was beautifully drawn into an injudicious drive by Hoggard. His aggregate for the series now stands at 631.
Inzamam was Harmison’s first wicket in 47 overs but within another three he had added Kamran Akmal, well taken by Collingwood low at third slip. Harmison’s revival may be as inexplicable as his earlier lacklustre showing. Hoggard has admitted he has been disturbed from his usual patterns by operating in a four-man rather than five-man attack and it may be that Harmison has experienced similar dislocation. There is a strong case for Harmison being told to finish the season with some four-day cricket with Durham because otherwise he won’t bowl as many overs in a day again until the two three-day warm-up matches in Australia.
Given the uncertain weather, the loss of three wickets in seven overs may have actually improved Pakistan’s prospects because the new batsmen, Faisal Iqbal and Shahid Nazir, clearly came out with instructions to be positive.
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Monty Panesar deserved to have Iqbal, on 19, taken at long on but Hoggard never got into position to take a low catch. Iqbal was reprieved again, this time on 41, when Bell put down a diving effort at gully off Mahmood. Faisal went on to make an otherwise tidy half-century, though he endured a heated verbal exchange with Mahmood, who wrongly thought he had had him caught off the glove.