England had jeopardized their chances of remaining unbeaten in a May Test at Lord’s after a miserable batting display. However, Dominic Bess and Jos Buttler seem to have teamed up well to offer England a sigh of relief against the clinical opponents, who are still in the driving seat.

Alastair Cook tried to salvage England’s pride with a 70-run knock in the first innings, where Pakistan struck hard and bundled out England for a poultry score of 184. The charged up visitors then had four fine 50+ knocks at their disposal, which give them a 179-run lead over England.

James Anderson and Ben Stokes’ 3-wicket hauls weren’t any less important than the cheap four-fers from Mohammad Abbas and Hasan Ali, but that couldn’t guarantee England a resurgence in the contest as their batting line-up crumbled once again in the second innings and at one point, became 110/6.

Pakistan were eyeing to bag a glorious victory as none of the batters from England were able to tackle the trio Mohammad Amir, Shadab Khan, and Abbas. Each of them took two scalps while allowing none of the English batsmen go past 12 runs, except for the skipper Joe Root who contributed 68 of those hard-earned 110 runs.

Jos Buttler and Dominic Bess then launched a counter-attack and stood firm for the hapless side. Both picked up a half-century each and suddenly, the third day became a better one than the other two for England despite losing six of their precious wickets here.

After quickly removing the remaining two wickets of Pakistan at the beginning of the day and then going on to post 235 runs, England expunged the chances of an innings-defeat. However, it can’t be said that the unbeaten 125-run partnership between Buttler and Bess has pulled the team out of the danger zone, but it certainly has given them enough intent to stand firm, come what may.

Buttler will resume the fourth day on his score of 66 alongside Bess, who has made 55 so far. The onus is now on them to extend the 56-run lead and help their team set a challenging target for the visiting team.

After a set of disappointing away performances in Tests, England were hoping this home series to bring them luck. Unfortunately, in their first Test home after nearly nine months, the team doesn’t appear to have much fuel left in it to turn this around and yet if they really want to mount a comeback, it’s time they started striking the right notes.

 

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