England bat on with 391-lead after Misbah stands alone

Pakistan 119 for 8 (Misbah 22*, Woakes 4-42) trail England 589 for 8 dec (Root 264, Cook 105) by 470 runsScorecard and ball-by-ball details

England dismantled Pakistan for 198 on the third afternoon at Old Trafford but even with an advantage of 391 runs chose not to enforce the follow-on. There is talk of fickle Manchester weather for the second half of the match, but even that did not persuade England’s captain Alastair Cook to go for an early kill.

Few Test captains put the opposition in again these days without misgivings, but having dismissed Pakistan within 63.4 overs, Cook’s reluctance was debatable even allowing for modern trends.

Perhaps the need to soft pedal with Ben Stokes after his return from a knee operation, or the flaky form of his only spin bowler, Moeen Ali were contributory factors. Perhaps England have no wish to face the leg spin of Yasir Shah in the fourth innings after his success against them in the first Test at Lord’s gave Pakistan victory and took Yasir to the top of the Test bowling rankings.

Perhaps more likely is that Cook recognised the need to give some batting to his malfunctioning middle order with James Vince and Gary Ballance both struggling to assert themselves. But that would depend on them getting to the crease.

Whatever the considerations, the old fox, Misbah-ul-Haq, would nevertheless have allowed himself a moment of satisfaction at the …

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