England Ben Stokes won the toss and chose to bat first in Rawalpindi.
Sajid Khan and Noman Ali have given Pakistan the early edge in the ongoing third Test against England being played in Rawalpindi from October 24, 2024 onwards. The series is level 1-1 and the series decider sees Pakistan preparing a spin friendly surface.
England captain Ben Stokes won the toss and chose to bat first. The visitors are playing three spinners in Rehan Ahmed, Shoaib Bashir and Jack Leach, with Joe Root for support. On the other hand, Pakistan has Sajid Khan, Noman Ali, Zahid Mahmood and Salman Ali Agha, with Saim Ayub for support.
England had a good start with openers Zak Crawley (29) and Ben Duckett (52) adding 56 runs while playing cautiously. But then Noman Ali struck, making Crawley play a false shot and getting out caught by Saim Ayub.
However, the concerning part was that the Rawalpindi pitch clearly lacked in pace and the bounce got extremely low through the session with spin playing a key role in proceedings. Sajid and Noman stuck to their guns to bowl probing new-ball spells.
The low bounce was evident by the way Duckett was dismissed. Noman Ali bowled a simple delivery that pitched on off and was hitting the stumps. But the ball didn’t bounce much and hit Duckett at ankle height as he played on the back foot and missed the ball due to low bounce.
Sajid Khan used the same uneven bounce and probing lines to dismiss Ollie Pope. Pope went right across his stumps to sweep Sajid Khan, only to see the low bounce resulting in the ball hitting the leg stump.
Here is the video:
At the lunch break, England was 110/5 with Sajid Khan (3-55) and Noman Ali (2-53) rocking their boat early.