It would be interesting to analyse the current Division One counties and have a look at how many have English qualified players as their top three in the batting order.

I'm guessing it would be a very small selection.

On a not unrelated note, Phil Jacques has retired from first class cricket in Australia so he can take up a UK passport on signing for Yorkshire rather than be an overseas player.

better start, dead rubber though

Pakistan all out for 99!

Can we manage a first innings lead?

(Morgan keeps his place in an unchanged England XI.)

88/4

104/6 at the close.

This has been one of the most bizarre series I can remember.

Batters poor again, felt for KP today. (Suppose Trott too). Bell must think he's run over next doors cat.

The bowlers as per were fantastic, hopefully we'll get another cameo from either Broad or Swann or maybe even Monty to get England a decent lead.

Every run the tail gets will be frustrating for Pakistan, hopefully we get a bit of luck with edges through vacant slip regions etc.

If we're chasing 140+, gulp. Brace yourself.

That's just what I'm fearing, JWP

I really don't know what's happened to our batsmen's confidence, since we smited India to all corners of the grounds, 6 months ago. The bowlers are doing a sterling job, despite Tremlett and Bresnan missing. There's a few people who need to "stand up and be counted", when they walk down the pavillion steps with a bat in their hand, next time.

I'm astounded as to Morgan's inclusion for this test. He's not REGULAR test match standard (yet)

I'm disgusted by the Morgan Review. The various one day competitions have been tinkered with so much over the last decade I'm not really bothered what happens to them, but cutting the number of Championship matches when the current format has worked so well and produced so many exciting finishes since it was adopted in 2000 is shocking.

I'm not sure how to link it as it's on a PDF, but Morgan's proposed calendar for the 2014 season is on my desktop. The season starts on Friday 11 April with the one day knockout final on Saturday 20 September; the Champions League is scheduled to begin on 10 September. The season is still just as long, it overlaps with the Champions League, and there are still 19 dates allocated for Championship matches, the same as last season. The only difference is that each team is inactive for five out of 19 rounds instead of three out of 19 rounds.

Pakistan look to be taking control of this one now, if we don't break the Younis/Azhar Ali partnership soon we might be in trouble - as I have no confidence in us chasing anything remotely challenging at the moment.

Agree, evidence again how one bad session can lose you the game

This game is lost now....Who'd have thought a month ago we'd be contemplating a humiliating whitewash against Pakistan?

Looks like this present side have reached their peak and are now on a downward path, similar to how the great 2004-2005 period side quickly faded away, sparked by an abject away series with the Pakistanis too.

Just goes to show what a difference one big partnership can make in a low scoring match. Looks like we'll be chasing 250 minimum, which ought to be attainable in theory when the other team has just scored a bit more than that, but I just can't see England at present being mentally tough or confident enough to pull it off.

I only saw the final hour or so of yesterday's play, but it was painful to watch. I think we scored about 30 runs in twenty overs, lost three wickets and were lucky not to lose more, and generally were hopelessly outplayed.

Looks like Pakistan will become the first team since 1907 to win a Test match after being dismissed for under 100 in the first innings.

You just can't work these pitches out.

Both sides have a poor innings and then Pakistan pull 200 and odd runs out the bag.

Wickets tumbling now, the pitch is doing something for the spinners now so I'll be pleasantly surprised if we can muster 100 batting last.