Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Pity of Pakistan


Broad and Trott skip on against Pakistan. Amir looks on in some pain. Photo: Clive Rose/Getty Images.

One ball. One wicket. That’s how far away Pakistan were from establishing a match-winning and series-squaring position at Lords. Now only god or, more probably, rain can save them.

When Stuart Broad joined Jonathan Trott at the crease on Friday England were reeling at 102-7. If any one of the next, oh, 180 deliveries had dismissed either batsman England might have been dismissed for no more than 200 runs and Pakistan would have enjoyed every chance of forcing another improbable victory and, in so doing, levelling the series. Such are the margins between success and failure in test match cricket. 

332 runs later Stuart Broad eventually fell but not before the record books had been rewritten and Pakistani spirits shattered. Broad’s innings was majestic and a coming-of-age moment; Trott’s an innings that began in dogged, defiant fashion before moving to a quiet, undemonstrative mastery of the Pakistan bowling. And how England needed this epic, history-making parternship since no other batsman got beyond 22.

A word on Trott: even if one still thinks he should not be in the team (being not just a South African but a South African who celebrated with the South African team on their most recent tour of England) it’s hard not to appreciate his contributions this summer. Without him, and to a lesser extent Prior, the English batting would have proved almost as gossamer-thin as Pakistan’s. Trott, in other words, has become England’s new Collingwood. Which in turn means one must ask if England still need their old Collingwood. Not on this summer’s heavy-footed evidence they don’t. This has been a good series for Ian Bell to miss.

Back to Lords: even as one marvelled at Trott and Broad one suspected that something still more awful than chasing leather lay in Pakistan’s immediate future.

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