Jonathan Trott and Alastair Cook hit half-centuries to help England recover from the early loss of Andrew Strauss on the second day of the second Test against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi yesterday.
Trott was unbeaten on 57 and Cook on 58, having added 105 runs for the unbroken second-wicket stand, after Strauss was dismissed in the first session.
England had reached 132-1 at tea, trailing Pakistan’s first innings score of 257 by 125 runs.
In the morning, Stuart Broad completed bowling figures of 4-47 to bowl out Pakistan, who added just one run to their overnight score of 256-7.
Pakistan had hoped for more wickets on an uncharacteristically helpful Abu Dhabi Stadium pitch — expected to help batsmen initially — but Trott and Cook survived some anxious moments and two leg-before reviews.
Trott was batting on 22 when Saeed Ajmal appealed for a leg-before but Australian umpire Steve Davis replied in the negative, although TV replays showed the England batsman was out.
Pakistan did not go for a review, but they did unsuccessfully challenge the same umpire’s decision of not out when Trott was trapped by Ajmal on 48.
Unperturbed, Trott took a single off Mohammad Hafeez to reach his ninth half-century off 95 balls. He has so far hit six boundaries off 130 balls.
On 51, Trott again survived a leg-before review, this time off Hafeez.
Cook was more cautious and assured as he hit Hafeez towards mid-wicket for his sixth boundary to complete his 27th fifty in Tests, which came off 133 balls.
When England began their innings, Cook and Strauss were opening the innings together for the 100th time, but the captain’s early fall for 11 meant they were unable to mark the milestone with a big stand.
Pakistan introduced Hafeez in the seventh over and were rewarded with the wicket of Strauss, who edged a sharp turner that flew off his pad to Asad Shafiq at short-leg.
Earlier, Broad and James Anderson (2-46) took 16 deliveries to wrap up Pakistan’s innings, the last three wickets falling within just seven balls.
Misbah-ul-Haq added just one to his overnight score of 83 before being trapped leg-before by Broad.
Misbah hit five boundaries and four sixes during his 173-ball knock.
From the other end Anderson, wicket-less on Wednesday, trapped Ajmal and then had the last man, Junaid Khan, caught by Graeme Swann to finish off the innings.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier