A viral video of Joe Root shining the ball at Jack Leach’s bald head is doing the rounds on social media. The incident caught everyone’s eye as the incident took place during the 72nd over of Pakistan’s innings when cameras panned to former England captain Root taking the ball and rubbing it on Leach’s bald head. This left the commentators laughing.
Meanwhile, one of them mentioned how Root could not use saliva on the ball due to Covid-era rules and hence had to use sweat on Leach’s bald head to shine the ball. You can watch the full event here.
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Meanwhile, the Rawalpindi Test has already turned out to be a run fest with teams already scoring over 800 runs. With the pitch looking highway, the batsmen are only expected to dominate the proceedings.
England spinners removed Abdullah Shafiq and Imam-ul-Haq after scoring centuries on Saturday as Pakistan reached 298-3 at lunch on the third day of the opening Test in Rawalpindi.
Off-spinner Will Jack dismissed Shafiq for 114, while left-armer Jack Leach dismissed Haq for 121.
Pakistan still need 160 runs to avoid the follow-on after England scored 657 on Friday, their highest ever against the home team.
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Despite the fall of three wickets in the first session on Saturday, the much-anticipated pitch at the Rawalpindi Stadium did not offer much to the bowlers.
Captain Babar Azam was on 28 at the break and Saud Shakeel is yet to score any runs.
Azhar Ali was trapped leg before by Leach for 27, but he could have gone more cheaply had Zak Crawley not missed a sharp chance to his left at leg slip from fast bowler James Anderson’s first over of the morning.
Centuries by Shafiq and Haque meant that for the first time in 146 years of Test cricket, openers from both teams reached three figures in the first innings.
Their 225-run opening stand – a Pakistan record against England – is also the first time in Test history that two 200-plus opening partnerships followed, following Crawley and Ben Duckett’s 233-run stand.
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