Paceman Stuart Broad felt fighting England deserved wickets in the dying moments of the second day in the first Test and if they score big in their second knock they can pose problems for Pakistan. England grabbed the prized wicket of Pakistani skipper Misbah-ul Haq (52) in spinner Graeme Swann’s penultimate over and then dismissed Abdul Rehman in the next to keep Pakistan’s total at 288-7, a first innings lead of 96. Broad said England stuck to their plans.
“We deserved those wickets. We came to the ground this morning knowing well that it is not going to be easy and we wanted to keep them to 2.7 (runs per over) and with that pressure you pick up wickets,” said Broad, who gave England an early breakthrough. Pakistan were cruising along nicely with openers Mohammad Hafeez (88) and Taufiq Umar (58) putting on 114 for the first wicket before Broad dismissed Umar and Azhar Ali (one). Misbah and Adnan Akmal had put on 52 for the seventh wicket and it seemed they will carry on before Swann trapped Pakistan skipper leg-before and had the original decision overturned through Decision Review System (DRS).
“Swanny wants to refer everything and it is about gathering whether it is wise or not. So (Andrew) Strauss was right to go for that and with two referrals left and him being a key player on 50 it was worth that risk.” Broad felt if England bowl Pakistan for another 30 runs they can fight back.
“If we can get them ahead by only 30 we will be in a good position. Pakistan is still strong and we are chasing the game a little bit,” said Broad, who reminded England had fought back to wins in recent Test matches.
“If you look back to Brisbane (against Australia in November 2010) and Trent Bridge (versus India last year) where we had a bad first innings the bowlers kept us in the game and then our second innings went really big,” said Broad, 25.
“We need to learn from the mistakes, certainly we batted really badly. It is important that we put those runs right. It is an exciting challenge, the guys obviously have to play the Pakistan bowlers a little bit differently,” said Broad. Hafeez was confident Pakistan were still in a strong position.
“We just lost a couple of wickets lately, we are still very much in control of this game with two spinners in our side and we are having very good chance to win this game,” said Hafeez.
Hafeez praised England’s disciplined bowling. “Our middle-order should have scored big but this is part of the game, England bowled well and consistently hit the right area. Sometimes in cricket the other teams get you out with good bowling,” said Hafeez, who rued missing out on a century. “Its disappointing to miss a century, I got out on 95 in 2006 (against England at The Oval), but hopefully I will do better in future.”
Broad praises England’s fightback in first Test
