Tuesday 22 / October / 2024
Southampton: After rain and bad light hindered play for most of the second Test, Pakistan aim to level series while England hope to jump past Australia in the World Test Championship points table in the third Test in Southampton.
The second Test in Southampton turned out to be a damp squib but the teams convene at the same venue on Friday for the final match of their Test leg. England are on the verge of completing another series victory in the summer but Pakistan, who haven't lost a series in the country since the end of 2010, will look to maintain their record.
There's a bigger picture that the teams will also be eyeing – the ICC World Test Championship. England are placed third behind India and Australia with 279 points. A win will take them past Australia into second position.
Pakistan, on the other hand, are placed fifth with 153 points. A win will take them above New Zealand to fourth position, but they will still be quite a distance behind third-placed England.
England replaced Ben Stokes with Zak Crawley, and like against West Indies in Southampton last month, the Kent batsman impressed with a half-century.
The only change England might ponder is resting James Anderson, although he had minimal workload in the last Test, to play Mark Wood or Jofra Archer to add some pace to the bowling attack.
However, with the forecast not overly great for a few days of the third Test, England might stick to Anderson, who was masterful with the ball in Pakistan's first innings in the second Test.
Pakistan had given a game to Fawad Alam ahead of Shadab Khan to strengthen the batting front, but the veteran domestic batter was dismissed for a four-ball duck. It's too small a sample size to go back on their plans, so it is likely that they will field the same team for the final Test.
If they do ponder a change, it could be rotating out one of the pace bowlers, but that seems rather unlikely given how they have fared in the series so far.
Remember the last time
The bowling attacks were in excellent rhythm in the previous Test. While Anderson and Stuart Broad shared seven wickets in the first innings, Sam Curran and Chris Woakes were also right on the money. For Pakistan, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Mohammad Abbas were sharp with the new ball with Naseem Shah, as usual, keeping the speeds high.
England extended the streak of no losses in home Test series to 13 when they drew the second Test in Southampton. Their last series loss at home came against Sri Lanka in 2014. Since then, excluding the ongoing series, they have won 8 Test series and drawn four.
Pakistan last won an away Test match in England in 2018. Since then, they lost six successive away games – three in South Africa, two in Australia and one this series in England – before rain forced a draw last Test.
Jonathan Trott, England batting coach: "It is about going out there and combating the conditions we find out there and both are capable of doing that. We've seen them both [Sibley and Crawley] bat time in the first class game and Dom Sibley in Test match cricket so we'd like to see some more of that."
Waqar Younis, Pakistan bowling coach: "Conditions were tough, Rizwan played a brave, positive and calculated knock. It's not easy batting with the tail, but he added small partnerships and got Pakistan to a total where we all were feeling confident and were in the game."
