At almost exactly 4.19pm on the second day of the second Test something almost happened. The sun, only ever grudgingly present, appeared just enough overhead to offer a lime green sheen to the late-season outfield, as weathered as an antique heirloom carpet. Pakistan had gradually slumped under the table between lunch and tea at Lord’s.
They were lolling at 110 for nine, product of 37 overs of almost entirely anonymous batting. This is an unusual Pakistan, if only in their absolute and unyielding ordinariness. The classic Pakistan Test team are an uneasy balance of stars, perhaps a little overwhelmed by their own weapons: speed, seam, spin, luminous top-order batting, all mixed in with the ballast of some unspectacular other guys.
This Pakistan are something else. This is like watching an entire team of other guys, an Other Guys XI. At 4.20pm the sun was still just about there as Mohammad Abbas, Pakistan’s 36-year-old tailender, braced his knees and faced up to Jofra Archer, gliding in horribly from the Pavilion End.
The ball from Archer was 90mph, back of a length and on Abbas’s hip, propelled from that oddly chilling run and gather, the arm that seems to hold itself very slightly in place before whipping down in a controlled arc, all grace and high physical craft. Abbas rocked back and defended, left arm jerking down like a man surprised by a hornet at a picnic. The ball struck somewhere near the shoulder of his bat and travelled in a slow arc towards mid-off, where Josh Tongue dived and fell just short with Archer, bent double, watching this tableau play out.
The next ball was full, eluding the guesswork of Abbas’s airy drive, the kind of shot you might play with a loofah in the bathroom mirror. The stumps were splayed with a lovely thick clunking sound. Abbas was already walking off as he finished his swing, the innings closed.
Archer was utterly high grade here, charged with menace and easy power, and producing not only his fastest Test-match opening spell but a kind of one-man elite sport event that felt entirely separate to the cricket match taking place whenever he wasn’t bowling. He clearly loves running in from that Pavilion End, likes the slope in his legs, the low gauze sight screen behind him, the shifting throng of men in salmon trousers. But there was also something oddly brittle about this spectacle, almost exactly seven years on from his debut on this ground.
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