<\/p>\n
At half past two in the afternoon the fans struck up a conga in the Hollies Stand. Fifteen Fred Flintstones, 11 Oompa Loompas with one Willy Wonka, five cardinals with an inflatable doll, four centurions, three six-foot bottles of tequila, two Dave Bedfords, one Geri Halliwell, one Donald Trump, and a Dolly Parton bringing up the rear. Out in the middle, England\u2019s four fast bowlers were flogging an endless succession of back-of-length balls at the Pakistani middle order, who blocked and ducked and slashed and cut.<\/p>\n
It was round about this moment that the Pakistanis could, perhaps, have been forgiven for asking whether English cricket was quite the force we\u2019ve all been led to believe these last few weeks.<\/p>\n For the first time in this series, the Pakistan batters stuck to the task. England had to confront the problem of trying to work out what to do when the opposition aren\u2019t gifting them wickets all in a tumble. It had been a while. The last time they had to bowl even a 51st over in a single innings was at the tail end of the match against New Zealand at Trent Bridge, 75 days ago, when Ben Stokes was still captain. Ollie Robinson hasn\u2019t had to bowl as many as the 21 overs he delivered in this innings since Sussex played Leicestershire in May.<\/p>\n This is the era of quick cricket. Only the optimists buy advance tickets for the fourth day\u2019s play these days. There have been seven two-day Tests in the last decade. There were only six in the entirety of the 20th century. Ten of the 20 shortest Tests that had a winner have been played in the last five years, five of them in the last 12 months. Old batters blame young batters, young batters blame groundstaff, groundstaff blame administrators, fast bowlers ask why they don\u2019t get the credit, and spin bowlers whether they\u2019ll get a bowl at all.<\/p>\n In a match that moves at that sort of speed you can get away without picking a spinner. But it still feels a little like going out for a long autumn walk without an umbrella: you\u2019re fine all the way up to the point when you find you\u2019re very much not. England, of course, have equipped themselves with Dan Lawrence, who has taken nine wickets at 71 runs each for Surrey in the championship this year, and whose bowling is habitually described as being better than it looks. It could hardly be worse, given that he runs up like a man who\u2019s trodden barefoot on his kids\u2019 Lego set in the black of the night.<\/p>\n Lawrence\u2019s success in this role seems largely to depend on his never actually having to perform it. In three Tests, he\u2019s been asked to bowl all of 9.4 overs, half of them in a desperate attempt to buy a wicket off the tail at the butt end of Friday\u2019s play. Until Lawrence had Azan Awais caught down the leg-side with a delivery that just grazed the outside edge of his bat, this was going to go down as the first three-Test series in this country for 50 years in which an English spinner hadn\u2019t taken a wicket.<\/p>\n Joe Root promptly yanked Lawrence out of the attack regardless. He preferred to return to his four quicks, even though three of them were going at more than four an over. The rhythm felt off, England had no way to change the tempo of the day\u2019s play, or tax the batsmen\u2019s techniques in new ways, to try their patience, or test their ability against anything that gave them time to think. Test cricket\u2019s supposed to be a game played in chords. England spent the day hammering away at the one single note over and over.<\/p>\n Steve Smith said back during the last Ashes that he wasn\u2019t sure whether there was any value in picking a spinner, and if even Nathan Lyon\u2019s struggling to justify his place in the team you have to wonder what hope there is for England\u2019s spinners. There are more of them out there than the Test selectors seem to believe, Jack Leach is still whirring away for Somerset, and has 31 wickets at 18 each this season, Yorkshiremen will tell you Dom Bess is bowling better than ever, and has 32 at 29, Mason Crane has 30 at 34 for Glamorgan, Liam Patterson-White 35 at 26 for Nottinghamshire.<\/p>\n
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