Crawley and Root rebuild after another day of toil and mishaps for England

For the best part of two days England toiled in the field, hours of perspiration and very occasional inspiration in which Pakistan accumulated a score that many opponents - though perhaps not these, who beyond their general proclivity to positivity have won the last two games in which they had conceded more than 500 - would find completely daunting. England kept calm, kept trying, pushing, working, making occasional inroads but very few mistakes. And then, in the space of just a few minutes, that all changed.

- Simon Burnton

It started with the dismissal of Shaheen Shah Afridi, Pakistan's ninth wicket to fall, with their score on 549. In the next over Salman Agha, having just become his team's third centurion, advanced to Joe Root, swung, missed and turned to see Jamie Smith inexplicably fumble the most straightforward stumping chance. In the over after that Abrar Ahmed top-edged to midwicket, where Gus Atkinson craned his neck to track the ball's trajectory, set his hands, and then somehow allowed the ball to plop through them.

The over after that ended with Root firing a bouncer in to Abrar, which might have been remarkable enough on its own, and the batter deflected it with the toe of his bat straight to slip, where Ben Duckett took the catch, ended the Pakistan innings and in the process injured his left thumb.

After the change of innings Ollie Pope, opening for the first time in first-class cricket as Duckett's stand-in, pulled his second delivery viciously over midwicket, where Aamer Jamal leapt to his right, flung out a hand, and plucked the ball out of the air. England had lost one wicket and - unless Duckett's thumb heals overnight - one injured batter, and Pakistan's bowlers had the two coolest hours of the day in which to cause havoc and 556 to defend.