30 too many, I thought. Not seen anyone land it on the football stand roof for a while, so take a bow Steve Smith.

Salman Butt's lack of experience - and a lack of experienced heads around him - as a captain shown up in great relief today.

'Appen not then.

40 needed with 7 wickets in hand tomorrow then - there's probably only one team in the world who could screw this up, but surely even Pakistan can't do it from here?

are they going to charge £30 for an hours worth of cricket tommorow?


scrap that, £5 entry...ill be up

It'll either be Aussie humiliation, one of the most remarkable bottle jobs in history, or a brilliant finish if a few wickets tumble.

I was going to go tomorrow if the game had been in full swing, might head along if I wake up early.

What a quality hour of cricket, bit "squeaky bum time" at a few points for Pakistan

The Western terrace(stand) was quality, the Pakastani fans were very vocal for a Saturday morning

Good value hour for a fiver, thought Pakistan were going to blow it, but they managed to score enough streaky runs to get them into position.

A bit of controversy made it all the more worthwhile with the Akmal decision, though Doug Bollinger allegedly said something quite unsavoury to a Pakistan supporter who had simply said to him "you're going to lose today and get used to it because you are going to lose the Ashes as well", a (English) bloke sat a few rows in front of me is writing to Cricket Australia about it apparently.

Pakistan's top three seamers are going to cause some problems for us in these conditions this summer but, as long as we bat reasonably, we should be able to get enough runs to win the series because their batting line up is weak, and they have a long tail - be interesting to see what happens with regards to Younis and Yousuf.

I know I mentioned it earlier but the Pakistan middle looks quite shaky if a bit of pressure is applied to it. The bowlers do pose a big threat, was very impressed with the guy who was medium pace (forgot his name) but by his run up length I thought he was a spinner!

Could cause some nice problems for England in the next month or two

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-10751255Poor crowds could cause redundancies at Headingley[/url.

As said previously I thought the prices were too high, and they were also hampered by the fact the test started before the school holidays got going, given Pakistan's test inactivity and the fact everyone thought they'd get a thrashing I'm not sure why they budgeted for such big crowds.

I don't know what the crowds at Lords were like for test one but it doesn't look like Pakistan will be making England their home based on that.

England win the toss and bat first at Trent Bridge.

No real surprises in the line-up, Bresnan left out of the XI.

Be interesting to see how Finn goes, doesn't seem to be that much pace and bounce in the pitch.

Has Bresnan been released to get to Gloucester in time for a 1:45 start or are we going to be missing our two best bowlers yet again?

Yep, and he's got an early wicket.

England 116-3, Pietersen just went for 9 and he made bloody hard work of that, Pakistan have lost their referrals after a couple of his close calls though, they might have been better keeping them for someone playing a bit better.

God these reviews are a pain in the ass.

Trott goes LBW after asking for a referral, 118-4, 3 wickets for Aamer who is bowling well again.

Dodgy, cheating b*****ds again!!!

Edge from Morgan which clearly did not carry to the keeper yet every Pakistan player claims it

No doubt the Pieterson haters will be out requesting he be dropped again

Morgan and Collingwood have taken control of this, Pietersen and Cook both need a score in the 2nd innings (if it gets that far) as they should be looking over their shoulders.

Cook does. KP is not under pressure, the selectors will carry him all summer (if they have to) to give him some time in the middle to regain his form as they know they need him to win the Ashes. Not so for Cook. With Bell, Trott and now Morgan having made test runs this summer and Strauss and Colly nailed on, Cook is the one who needs runs badly.

Yep, that's why I wrote "should be".

Asif runs through us for 354, Pakistan already 5/1 in reply.

Wouldn't be that surprised to see their second innings start today as well.

Cook seems to be one of those players who is a guaranteed selection irrespective of how badly he's playing (see also Paul Collingwood when he had a horror patch - was it two years ago at home?). The England selectors clearly see him as the successor/backup to Strauss as captain, so they're not going to dump him even if he doesn't look like he knows which end of the bat to hold.

You can only pick on past performance for so long before you have to start giving opportunities to players who are genuinely in form like Bopara and Adam Lyth.

48-6 at the moment.

Anderson and Finn ripping through them.

Well they steadied the ship a little and made it to 90/6 at tea.

I was asked if I wanted a ticket for Sunday last night, glad I said no now.

Interesting today very interesting

We're not covering ourselves in glory, and haven't since Pakistan were 47-6 batting, but we already have a 270 run lead which will be way too much for Pakistan to chase down based on anything we have seen from them.

Good, watchable, test cricket though.

If Pakistan could bat it could even have been a great series, however....