THE WEATHER conspired against Pakistan yesterday. Only 12 overs and three balls were possible, and that not until the afternoon of the opening day of the final Test, one which the visitors have to win to square the series.

By the time the gloom returned, followed by persistent and ultimately terminal drizzle, England had reached 39 for the loss of Andrew Strauss, bowled through the gate for 13, but by the right arm metronome Mohammad Asif rather than the left-arm teenager Mohammad Amir, hitherto his tormentor-in-chief.

Alastair Cook remains unbeaten on 10, although not without tribulations – he was dropped once and survived a caught-behind decision only after referral – while Jonathan Trott has eight.

Hereafter, the forecast perks up, and with time made up each day – 98.3 overs are scheduled today – and the Lord’s drainage allowing play almost immediately after the most drenching downpours, the game may yet run its natural course. But the early advantage that Salman Butt will have felt when he won the toss and asked England to bat, will have dissipated a little.

There was insufficient play for it to be called a battle – more a skirmish – but the Pakistan bowlers came at England with intent. There was purpose in their warm-up alongside the square once Butt had called correctly at the toss, and intensity in the catching practice too, although that was to prove less productive as the high standards achieved in their victory at the Oval dropped closer to the dismal efforts in the first two Tests.

If England got off to a flyer when Amir sent the first delivery way down the legside for five wides, then he and Asif soon renewed their interrogation of the techniques and temperament of the openers.

In the third over Amir, bowling from the Pavilion end where the slope sets him well at the crease, and helps him run the ball away from both left-handers, ought to have got an early reward. Cook, watchful with only one to his name, was nonetheless drawn into a push and he edged at knee height to the right of Umar Akmal at third slip, who grassed the chance.

This, by my reckoning, was the 18th catch Pakistan have dropped in the series, and while it is only a hypothetical exercise to try to assess the real cost in terms of runs, the damage in morale can be immense.

You rarely give a good batsman in form a second chance (Cook of course is fresh from a century at The Oval) and expect not to pay. That Cook then edged the next ball to third man for the day’s only boundary added insult to injury.

There was a further escape for Cook when he had nine, although this was down to the review system, which showed that the noise that had caused Billy Bowden to give him out caught behind, off Amir once more, had in fact come from bat striking pad. He was nowhere near the ball.

Strauss, meanwhile, had been concentrating hard on playing a circumspect innings. A compilation of the deliveries bowled to him by Asif through the series shows few would have gone on to hit the stumps, so judgment of what to leave is imperative.

However, having faced 36 deliveries, he then encountered one which swung in to him, carried on off the seam and down the slope, catching the inside edge before careering on to leg stump.

Strauss and Cook had begun the innings requiring 54 runs together to overtake Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe as England’s most prolific opening pair in terms of aggregate runs if not, by a factor of more than two, of average partnership. They still need 23.

By now the clouds were descending once more. Met Office radar showed the rain spreading from the southwest and as the drizzle began the Lord’s floodlights pierced the murk like gaslamps in a Victorian smog.

But there was time for Trott, that most diligently obsessive of practicers to clip his first ball, a leg-stump half-volley from Asif (something of a collectors’ item) through midwicket.

Mohammad Yousuf, his figure a little portly, chased gamely up the slope, but must have been willing it to reach the ropes, lest the batsmen run five. They might have made it too, had they not settled for an easy all-run four.

Both sides were unchanged, which means England have gone through the series with the same 11 players. This, it transpires, is a rarity for those of four matches or more, with only England twice (and not for 120 years), and Australia, West Indies and South Africa once apiece managing it. - Guardian Service