England vs Pakistan: After playing the patience game, tourists may now have to cast caution to the wind

While most of the leading Test teams have at least five players who flit across all formats including T20, Pakistan have only two in the side playing in Birmingham

Misbah-ul-Haq reached lunch unbeaten on 44 as Pakistan started to build a first-innings lead over England (Getty)

Pakistan remain well-placed in this pivotal Investec Test though they owe their position to the old school charm of their batsmen rather than any modern fads from their bowlers.

Whereas most Test teams pay lip service to Twenty20 cricket by racking up scoring rates above four runs an over, Pakistan’s batsmen, led by Misbah-ul-Haq, their sage captain, have returned to the days of long occupation.

Here at Edgbaston, over 10 hours and 22 minutes, they ground out a first innings lead over England of 103, at the stately rate of 2.94 runs an over. That is a team strike-rate of 49 which, when you consider that Alastair Cook, one of England’s slowest scorers flitted between 70-100 in his second innings, is about as slow as it gets in modern cricket.

As it happened, Cook and Alex Hales, the latter shaped by T20, erased the deficit with a century opening stand. And yet, the nostalgic approach by Pakistan’s batsmen meant that fine as Cook and Hales’s efforts were, only parity has so far been achieved.

Their batting here has so far been a throwback to the 1980s, if not earlier, though you still need discipline and a solid technique to bring it off. Part of England’s plan in this Test was to bowl “dry” in the channel outside off-stump, certain that Pakistan’s batsmen would not be able to resist chancing their arm.

But they were confounded, both by the patience and calmness of their opponent’s response to the point where it was they who were out-bored and not the visitors. It is an approach impressive in its single-mindedness though perhaps not a surprising one.

While most of the leading Test teams have at least five players who flit across all formats including T20, Pakistan have only two in the side playing in Birmingham who represent their country in the shortest format.

They are, to all intents and purposes, a specialist Test team which could explain why they are currently third in the Test rankings, one above England. So far, here, it is the batsmen who can probably take most of the plaudits. After the horror show at Old Trafford, where they were ambushed on a quick bouncy pitch, they could easily have done something similar here on a pitch England’s bowlers traditionally enjoy.

But whether persuaded by Misbah, or their new coach, Mickey Arthur, they have all sold their wickets dear, not always the case in the previous match. Their paragon of virtue in Birmingham has been was Azhar Ali, whose 139 on Thursday was a stolid and worthy innings in which he left the ball alone as often as he struck it. His 181-run partnership with opening batsman, Sami Aslam, was the mighty foundation upon which Pakistan’s eventual 400 was built.

Cook was trapped lbw by Rahat (Getty)

Others featured but almost all followed the prescriptive script of dour occupation. Misbah, already one captain’s innings to the good in the series (his hundred at Lord’s), weighed in with another knock of gravitas, his 56 ensuring his team would at least take a 1st innings lead. Pakistan’s wicket-keeper, Sarfraz Ahmed, also made a valuable, unbeaten 46, but as one of the two in the team who plays T20 cricket for his country, he broke the mould.

Anyway, keeper’s are often quirky exponents with the bat and his down-on-one-knee sweeps off England’s pace bowlers, and impish shuffles down the pitch, were a hybrid of Alan Knott and Javed Miandad, though obviously the latter was just an awkward batsman to bowl at and not a keeper.

According to Test history, for every 100 matches that end in victory only 3.7 of them are won by teams conceding a deficit of 100 or more runs. That England’s openers have absorbed that without damage means we should be in for a cracking finale over the final two days providing the pitch does not completely go to sleep.

It could also mean that Pakistan’s batsmen, having played the patience game so well in the first innings, might have to cast caution to the wind on the final day if victory is in the offing. If such an opportunity transpires, we will see how comfortable they are in doing so.