Curiosity troubled the English side as a ‘Teesra’ was never necessary for Ajmal’s 7/55

The first day of the much awaited Pakistan/England test match started today in Dubai with all eyes on Saeed Ajmal’s magical fingers. The highest wicket taker in 2011 claimed before the match that he will introduce a new delivery called ‘Teesra’ during

the match.

England started off steadily and was not bothered by the Pakistani pace attack. Both Omer Gul and Aizaz Cheema struggled after Pakistan was forced to bowl on a track that seemed absolutely dead.

Misbah-ul-Haq introduced the off spinner, Muhammad Hafeez to bowl the sixth over during the first day of the test match, which was a bit unusual. Hafeez lived up to the expectation of his captain and produced just the right delivery that clipped Alistair Cook’s bat and landed in the safe hands of the wicket keeper Adnan Akmal.

Akmal was indeed impressive during the first session as he took three catches in total. He missed a couple of possible stumping opportunities that might have resulted in a much better position for the home side.

The star of the day was no one else but Saeed Ajmal who took 7 wickets with the economy rate of 2.24 runs per over. Ajmal bowled a total number of 24.3 overs with 7 maidens and conceded 55 runs.

AJ Strauss, KP Pietersen, IR Bell, EJG Morgan, SCJ Broad, CT Tremlett and JM Andersen were all the victims of his splendid spin bowling.

The team was struggling with 52/5 during the lunch and made a good come back to reach the total of 192 runs during the end of their first inning. Some healthy contributions from the tail-enders placed the English side in a much better position.

MJ Prior was the only batsman who was not bothered by any Pakistani bowling. He scored 70 runs with a strike rate of 45.45 and was not out as the top ranked test side crumbled on a flat pitch.

Hafeez, Aizaz Cheema and Abdur Rehman all took one wicket each however, Omer Gul failed to get anything out of the wicket.

Muhammad Hafeez and Taufeeq Omer opened the innings and were both not out with 22 and 18 runs respectively, leaving a trail of 150 runs with all wickets in hand for the Pakistani side.

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Posted by Ahmed Babar on Jan 17 2012. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry