Azhar puts Pakistan in control

Azhar Ali

Published: 1:31pm, 5th February 2012
Updated: 7:05am, 6th February 2012

England at last saw the back of Azhar Ali, but still need to pull off the second-highest run chase in their Test history to avoid a 3-0 whitewash against Pakistan.

Azhar's painstaking career-best 157 spanned six sessions and almost nine hours, before the number three was ninth out in Pakistan's 365 all out on the third evening at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

England were therefore left with more than six and a half sessions to make 324, on a wearing pitch which had already helped spinners Monty Panesar (five for 124) and Graeme Swann share eight wickets.

They made an acceptable start to their mission improbable, openers Alastair Cook and Andrew Strauss reprising the roles played by their great antecedents Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe, the last and only other time England made so many to win - against Australia in Melbourne in 1929.

Cook and Strauss achieved a notable first for this series at least, when they surpassed their previous highest opening partnership of 27 on this disappointing tour - reaching 36 for none at the close.

They had a scrape each before stumps, Cook dropped by Taufeeq Umar off Umar Gul at third slip on four and Strauss rightly given not out on 14 - even after DRS - when he got his pad outside the line on impact against Mohammad Hafeez's off-spin.

Azhar's 442-ball vigil had been a triumph of unstinting concentration, shot selection and restraint - taking in a stand of 216 with Younus Khan (127), and containing just 10 fours and one six.

But Pakistan's last seven wickets then fell for only 34 runs in 21 overs, to give world number ones England a glimmer of hope that their batsmen might yet redeem themselves here.