15 Oct 2015 | Cricket
Alastair Cook responded to the challenge laid down by Pakistan's run-hungry batsmen with an 168, his 28th Test century, as England's captain showed his team the way to survive, and then thrive, in the harsh desert conditions at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
On Cook's watch, England had made it to 290 for 3 by the close, a position of relative serenity given their travails in the field on the first two days, and only 34 runs short of the follow-on target. The bulk of his work was split between two century partnerships, first with Moeen Ali, who was a qualified success in his first outing as a Test opening batsman, and then with a hard-grafting Ian Bell, who found his feet, and his footwork, after a jittery start.
Pakistan's total of 523 for 8 declared remains several sessions from being equalled, but this was a day for the grand gesture, and Cook duly delivered in spades. His iron-willed feat of endurance, spanning 329 balls and more than eight hours to date, has once again shown the way for his team-mates, much as his trio of centuries did on the tour of India in 2012-13, his greatest captaincy triumph to date.
It was a lively finish to a tough day's work from Wahab, whose ability to start a spell at full tilt made him Pakistan's go-to man, albeit he served up nine no-balls and three wides in an occasionally erratic display. But his fellow seamers, Imran Khan and Rahat Ali, were a disappointment; their apparently economical figures a testament more to their lack of threat with either new ball than to any excellence on their part.
Aside from a sprinkling of plays-and-misses outside off, Cook's only other moment of alarm came on 101, when he stretched to sweep Zulfiqur and was struck on the pad perilously adjacent to off stump.
Umpire Reiffel turned down the initial appeal, and though replays showed he had been struck inside the line, Hawk-Eye suggested the ball was missing leg stump.
At the opposite end, in every sense, during their second-wicket stand of 165 was Bell, whose place in the team had been under scrutiny even before his crucial pair of dropped catches on the first day.
Though Bell got off the mark with a single from his third ball, he was unable to add to that tally for the remainder of his 24 balls before lunch, and was particularly troubled by the spin of Zulfiqar, his conventional technique seemingly unsuited to the flat skiddy conditions.
After tea, Bell discovered a degree of fluency, initially by unfurling his rarely used sweep-shot to keep the strike rotating, and latterly by bringing his favoured glide to third man into play. The best of his strokes was arguably a calm cover-drive for three as Wahab over-pitched outside off stump, but the most gratefully played was his conventional pull through backward square to bring up his half-century from 134 balls. It was one of the few balls all day that allowed him to play to one of his strengths.
Earlier Moeen Ali played his part and helped to post only England's sixth 100-run opening partnership since the retirement of Andrew Strauss in 2012. Two of those came earlier this year - Cook's stands with Jonathan Trott in Grenada in April, and with Adam Lyth at Headingley in June.
Crowned Asian Cricket Awards Player of the Year earlier this week Moeen was untroubled aside from an awkward moment in the first hour when he was struck on the shoulder by a Wahab bouncer, but just when it seemed he might be able to press on to the sort of substantial score that might seal his audition, he was undone by one of the better balls of the day, a good-length delivery from Imran that nipped away by half-a-bat's width and took the edge through to the keeper. But the day's agenda had been set, and Cook remained on hand to take the minutes with typical dilligence.
England captain Alastair Cook, speaking to Sky Sports: It's been tough physically but I'm pleased to get through. It's a different style of cricket on these slow, low wickets and if you can be patient you can bat for long periods of time. Mahela Jayawardene is in our dressing room now and he was the master of it. At tea, he was at me to keep going and telling me to go through the day.
I like to think I have developed against spin and I do think I can score aggressively when I need to. For the first 30-40 balls, they have men around the bat and you can't run down the pitch. You have to trust your defence. Ian Bell did that and got his rewards.
I'd take 295 tomorrow. I said if I ever got close to 294 again, I wouldn't get out caught at deep point. Not that it still bugs me or anything...