Opener Alastair Cook struck a fighting hundred to prop up a struggling England batting display against the Pakistan Cricket Board XI in their second three-day tour match.
The 27-year-old left-hander hit an attractive 133 to lift England, sent into bat, to 269 for nine declared on the opening day of the match played at the Global Cricket Academy. In reply, the PCB XI were 22 for no loss at close, with openers Nasir Jamshed on 12 and Afaq Raheem on 10.
Apart from Cook, Matt Prior (46) and Kevin Pietersen (38) were the only top-order batsmen to get some runs as Andrew Strauss (three), Jonathan Trott (zero), Ian Bell (zero) and Eoin Morgan (11) flopped again.
That left England much to think about ahead of the first Test against Pakistan, starting on January 17.
Cook, who made 76 and 24 in England’s three-wicket win in the first tour match, held the innings together by adding 83 for the third wicket with Pietersen and had a fighting stand of 90 with Prior for the sixth. He was finally dismissed, caught behind by Sarfraz Ahmed off Mohammad Talha before England declared the innings.
Talha finished with four for 43. But it was young leg-spinner Yasir Shah who rattled the middle-order and finshed with highly impressive figures of five for 75 to boost his team.
Misbah tells England to forget scandal
Meanwhile, Pakistan captain Misbahul Haq has appealed to England to forget the spot-fixing scandal that marred the two teams’ Test series last year.
Pakistan and England will meet for the first time in 17 months since a plot by former captain Salman Butta and two fast-bowlers Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif to bowl deliberate no-balls ended with jail sentences for the three cricketers.
Misbah said both teams needed to move past the scandal.
“I think both teams know we just have to forget the past,” Misbah was quoted as saying on ESPNcricinfo. “Our area of concern is to play good cricket and fair cricket.
“In the last year, our performances show that – the way we are behaving on the field, the way we are conducting ourselves.
“Credit goes to the team and all the players after a difficult time – everybody just stuck to the task, gathered their thoughts and just wanted to prove to the world that we were good players and a good team.”
Meanwhile, Pakistan team manager Naveed Akram Cheema was also adamant that the management has been able to reform the team, enabling it to come out from the spot-fixing shadow.
“The PCB has introduced a code of conduct and all these guys have been told about it,” said Cheema. “We are following this code in letter and spirit. I think with those rules and regulations in place, the chances [of spot fixing] happening again are not there. I am absolutely confident about that.”
Misbahul Haq
“Credit goes to the team and all the players after a difficult time – everybody just stuck to the task, gathered their thoughts and just wanted to prove to the world that we were good players and a good team.”
Naveed Cheema
“The PCB has introduced a code of conduct and all these guys have been told about it. We’re following this code in letter and spirit. I think with those rules and regulations in place, the chances [of spot fixing] happening again aren’t there.”
Published in The Express Tribune, January 12th, 2012.
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