England made a strong comeback to balance the game on Day 1 of the third Test match against Pakistan in Rawalpindi on Thursday. As predicted earlier, spinners dominated the opening day of the decisive Test as England were bowled out to 267 in their first innings.
Sajid Khan picked six wickets and Noman Ali claimed three as Pakistan managed to get a good help from a slow wicket at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. The wicketkeeper batter Jamie Smith scored 89 and Ben Duckett registered a fifty but the rest of Three Lions' batting unit had no answer to Pakistan's spin attack.
However, Pakistan lost their grip on the game in the third session as England bowlers also made an impressive impact with three wickets. Jack Leach, Gus Atkinson and Shoaib Bashir picked a wicket each as Pakistan scored a total of 73 for 3 at the end of Day 1.
"I've been playing FC cricket for the last 7-8 years and have played on all types of surfaces," Sajid Khan said after Day 1's play. "It's good that the pitch is helping the spinners a lot and I have brought in all my variations into play. If you play cricket regularly, you'll know what to do on the pitch, I like the wicket of Root, he was a very important wicket for us, he's their best and we did well as per our plans. Credit to Jamie Smith as well, he did extremely well with the lower order."
Pakistan Playing XI: Saim Ayub, Abdullah Shafique, Shan Masood (c), Kamran Ghulam, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Agha Salman, Aamer Jamal, Noman Ali, Sajid Khan, Zahid Mahmood.
England Playing XI: Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jamie Smith (wk), Gus Atkinson, Rehan Ahmed, Jack Leach, Shoaib Bashir.
