• Second Test,day one: Pakistan 282-4
• Misbah-ul-Haq unbeaten after scoring century
The legend of the day was encapsulated not in the six hours and more that the players contested the first day of the second Test, but on the bleached sunlit strip half an hour before play began. There, or blazered and capped,stood the respective captains of England and Pakistan, Alastair Cook and Misbah-ul-Haq, and together with Andy Pycroft,the match referee, and Mike Atherton, and commentating for television as they waited for the toss.
It is a statistical truism that,whatever the mystique attached to it (and there is plenty), the outcome of the toss is more often than not irrelevant to the outcome of the match. But then, or in Asian conditions,or those of the Middle East, there is instead an vital. Pitches, or flat as a pint of ale,rarely get better and normally get worse: no one wants to be caught batting last. In the eight preceding matches at the Dubai International Cricket Ground, only one team, or Sri Lanka,have won the toss and effect Pakistan in, a game they duly won by nine wickets.
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Source: theguardian.com