England vs Pakistan, 2020: 2nd Test, Day 1 – Fawad Alam's Test comeback, Joe Root's toss record at home and more stats

England made a decent start in the Southampton Test during a rain-marred opening day’s play as Pakistan lost five wickets for 126 after electing to bat first. James Anderson struck in his second over to dismiss the last match’s batting star, Shan Masood. But Abid Ali (60) and skipper Azhar Ali (20) managed to survive a brief period and added 72 runs for the 2nd wicket. Anderson provided the breakthrough which was followed by all the remaining three pacers picking up a wicket each in the final session.

Here are all the statistical highlights from the first day’s play of the Southampton Test match:

Fawad’s returns to Test cricket after a decade:

10y 259d – Fawad Alam played a Test match after 10 years and 259 days which makes it the 2nd longest break between two Test appearances for Pakistan. Younis Ahmed didn’t feature in Test cricket for 17 years and 111 days between November 1969 and February 1987. Pakistan played as many as 104 Tests during that period.

88 – Fawad Alam missed 88 consecutive Test matches played by Pakistan between December 2009 and the last week’s Manchester Test. This is the 7th longest miss for any player and the 2nd longest for Pakistan in Test cricket.

Stats: Fawad Alam returns to Test cricket after 10 years

Joe Root loses another toss at home:

6 – Joe Root now has lost the toss in each of his six previous six Test matches as captain at home. Interestingly, Root won all the tosses in this format in his previous six Tests as captain away from home.

Azhar Ali falls to Anderson again:

8 – Azhar Ali now has been dismissed for the 8th time against James Anderson in Test cricket. Only Rangana Herath (10) has dismissed Azhar more times than Anderson in the longer format.

Alam returns with a duck:

3 – Fawad Alam is only the 3rd player in Men’s cricket to have bagged a duck in his comeback Test innings cricket after a break of 10 or more years. Lala Amarnath bagged a duck in 1946 playing his first Test after 12 years and 129 days while Sid Pegler spend 11 years and 306 days without playing a Test before making a comeback in 1924 where he was dismissed for a duck. Alam and Amarnath registered ducks on the day of their comeback while Pegler after picking up two wickets with the ball.