Twitter Reactions: England comeback strong at Old Trafford to level series

You are out to hunt a Lion in its own territory and you know it will pounce at you hard even if you fire the opening shot on target. The Pakistan team should have also prepared themselves for a fitting reply from the England side after they were humbled in the first Test at Lord’s.

The second Test belonged to the home team right from the onset after Alastair Cook won the toss and decided to bat first. The skipper led from the front and scored a superb century that put his team in a position of command. His lieutenant Joe Root bettered the skipper’s performance scoring a double ton.

Root at the end of his knock had 254 runs to his name and had batted for 614 minutes. These two individual’s scores and their partnership worth 185 runs helped England towards a big total. Contribution in the lower order ensured they weren’t bowled out and rather declared at the score of 589/8.

Pakistan’s first inning didn’t have much to talk about. Except skipper Misbah-ul-Haq who scored 52 and Wahab Riaz’s 39 there was no significant score from any of the batters and they were wrapped up for a paltry 198. England had a 391-run lead but Cook chose to bat again.

The English top order dominated the proceedings once again and despite Alex Hales’ failure to capitalize Cook and Root did the job for the team again and scored quick-fire knocks of 76 and 71 respectively and England declared their last inning on 173 after batting for 30 overs. That had put up a target of 564 ahead of Pakistan and with more than two sessions of day 4 left the game looked good enough to be closed on the penultimate day.

English bowlers kept things tight and once again Pakistan were restricted without any major resistance. Mohammad Hafeez with 42, Asad Shafiq’s 39 and Misbah’s fighting 35 wasn’t enough and James Anderson & Co. folded them up for 234 in the second innings to hand them a 330-run defeat to level the series 1-1.

Here is how Twitter reacted to England’s respiring victory: