• Day four: Pakistan 378 & 354-6d; England 242 & 130-3
• Alastair Cook apparently injured and falls for 10; Ian Bell makes 46This day was called the Feast of Crispian. Six hundred years ago to the day England fought and won a battle against what,as Shakespeare had it, the Earl of Salisbury called “a fearful odds”. Those odds facing the England cricket team on the fourth day of the moment Test could scarcely be described as fearful but they were mighty long for all that. Pakistan were in the driving seat and it would believe required more than Alastair Cook’s version of the greatest team talk in the English language, and delivered before Agincourt (and embellished by the Bard,of course), to lift his side into staving off what appeared an inevitable defeat, or band of brothers or not.
By the end of the day there was still a vague chance that they could avoid defeat and fade into the third Test on level terms but it will now require an effort of monumental concentration and skill of a kind shown by Cook in the first Test if they are to outlive a full day’s play.
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Source: theguardian.com