England frustrated by Akmal

England
12 April 2012

England were held up by a stubborn half-century from Adnan Akmal as Pakistan reached 338 all out, a lead of 146, on the third morning of the first Test.

Akmal (61) batted with good sense and significant skill to frustrate England at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium, and eke out important runs with the tail, in his 117-ball 50.

England needed to finish Pakistan off quickly, from their overnight 288 for seven, if they were to continue to fight back significantly after starting this match so poorly.

They seemed set to do so when Stuart Broad prevented any potential aggravation from Umar Gul by seeing the useful tailender off for a duck, caught driving to point in the first over of the day.

Pakistan had then lost three wickets for six runs.

But Akmal and Saeed Ajmal dug in to put on a precious 30 more before England managed to strike again.

A contentious DRS ruling went against Pakistan, concluding Billy Bowden was right to give Ajmal out caught at short-leg off Graeme Swann (four for 107) via a suspicion of glove and pad.

But Akmal was still able to add 19 more runs with number 11 Aizaz Cheema, before running past an off-break down the leg-side from Swann to be easily stumped.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in