After the first Test ended in a draw in Abu Dhabi, Pakistan and England will be eager to outdo one another when they square off at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium for the second Test match on Thursday.
The first innings of the first Test match did reflect the strong batting lineup of both the teams with England and Pakistan amassing 598 and 523 respectively. However, the second innings showed their inconsistency as well with Pakistan being bowled out for 173 runs, while England finished the Test match on 74/4, though, the English side, who were going for a win, were aggressive in their batting approach.
If one is to emerge victorious, consistency is the key in all five days of the Test match. Hence both teams, ahead of the second Test, will be concentrating on getting things right and, most importantly, being consistent. Pakistan will be looking forward to another impressive batting performance from Shoaib Malik and Asad Shafiq, who scored 245 and 107 runs respectively in the first innings.
Likewise, England will pin their hopes on skipper, Alistair Cook, who scored 263. But the other England batsmen need to convert their starts into meaningful scores as most of them failed to go on.
England will now have to negotiate Yasir Shah, who is set to play in the second Test, after missing the first Test due to a back spasm.
However, England's debutant leg-break bowler, Adil Rashid also impressed, using the Day 5 conditions pretty well to finish with five wickets.
Yasir Shah might not have played much cricket, but he has been bagging the headlines with his wicket-taking abilities as he has taken 61 wickets in 10 Test matches so far. England needs to be wary of the danger of Shah, who is the fastest Pakistan bowler to reach 50 wickets.
The first Test match might have been even-stevens, or maybe one could even say that England finished on top, but that is history now as they will need to concentrate on the second Test match in Dubai, which will be of utmost importance in the three-match Test series.
Squads: Pakistan : Misbah-ul-Haq (C), Ahmed Shehzad, Shan Masood, Mohammad Hafeez, Fawad Alam, Asad Shafiq, Younis Khan, Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), Yasir Shah, Bilal Asif, Zulfiqur Babar, Wahab Riaz, Imran Khan, Rahat Ali, Junaid Khan
England : Alastair Cook (C), Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Zafar Ansari, Jonny Bairstow, Ian Bell, Stuart Broad, Jos Buttler (wk), Steven Finn, Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, James Taylor, Mark Wood.
2nd Test sechedule: Pakistan vs England
Venue: Dubai international stadium
Date: October 22-26
Time: 10am local time ( 11:30am IST, 11am PKT, 7am BST)
TV Listings: Ten Cricket (India), PTV and Ten Sports (Pakistan), Willow TV (US) and Sky Sports (UK)
