Test debutant and Jos Buttler make a stand amid England’s desperate inability to find impetus against brilliant Pakistan
When the game was as good as lost, England at last started to play as if they could win. They were 110 for six, still 69 runs behind, when Dom Bess joined Jos Buttler in the middle. The two of them batted right through the late afternoon, in the sunny lees of a hot summer day. Buttler is a man of peerless talent but the way Bess, a 20-year-old playing his first Test, made it all look so easy showed up just how poor England had been until he came to the crease. They put on 125 and the hours their partnership lasted were the first since Thursday morning in which England had any measure of control over the match.
Related: Buttler and Bess steer England away from humiliation after Pakistan blitz
Related: Jos Buttler says Dom Bess’s batting was ‘like Joe Root’ after debut fifty
Continue reading...