England v Pakistan: second Test, day five – live!

39th over: England 105-4 (Root 4, Buttler 0) That just skidded on from Yasir, Pope was clearly expecting both more bounce and more turn and he couldn’t get his bat down in time to keep it off his pad.

It hit pad before bat, and as soon as that was decided Pope was doomed, because that was taking out a couple of stumps.

Pope is given out lbw to Yasir Shah, but got some bat on it and needs very little encouragement to try a review.

38th over: England 104-3 (Root 3, Pope 9) Pope ruins another potential maiden by clipping Abbas’s final ball off his hip and past square leg for four, lovely timing.

36th over: England 100-3 (Root 3, Pope 5) Two singles and a three off Yasir take England to triple figures.

35th over: England 94-3 (Root 2, Pope 0) Root goes down on one knee to sweep Yasir’s final delivery but gets nothing on it. Fortunately his back foot remained resolutely grounded. The match situation has drained this of much of its drama, but it’s still an intriguing spell of play.

34th over: England 92-3 (Root 0, Pope 0) A second successive wicket maiden from Abbas. Sibley’s tendency to feather catches down the leg side is repeatedly costing him.

Sibley gets a gentle nibble on a ball heading across him and down leg, and Rizwan takes the catch!

33rd over: England 92-2 (Sibley 32, Root 0) Yasir Shah seems very gentle after that.

32nd over: England 91-2 (Sibley 31, Root 0) Root leaves his third ball from Abbas, which bounces just in front of Rizwan and rears up past the gloves and into the keeper’s stomach. The next ball is excellent, missing the edge by the hairiest breadth, and then the last keeps a bit low and flicks a pad on its way through, prompting a loud appeal but not interesting the umpire. Six excellent deliveries, and a wicket maiden.

Ball tracking has the ball hitting the top of the stumps, and having completed a half-century off his 97th ball Crawley is out to No99!

Crawley has been given out, but Sibley indicates it might have been going over so they try a review!

31st over: England 91-1 (Crawley 53, Sibley 31) Crawley completes his half-century off his 97th delivery with a fine shot, sending the ball through midwicket for four. He’s looked in excellent nick today.

30th over: England 86-1 (Crawley 48, Sibley 31) Shan keeps going. At this point I suppose there’s no harm to be done.

29th over: England 84-1 (Crawley 48, Sibley 29) A couple of singles off Shah.

28th over: England 82-1 (Crawley 47, Sibley 29) Shan opens with a full toss, which Crawley dispatches to the boundary, and then a couple of balls later he sends the ball screaming over the slips for four more. I’m not sure that he’ll get as many as five overs here. “Simon you could let Richard O’Hagan know that he is overlooking the upside of a kilo of fennel sausage in ones knapsack,” writes Kim Thonger, “which is an excellent way to ensure social distancing on a train and indeed an empty first class carriage all to oneself is often the outcome.”

27th over: England 73-1 (Crawley 38, Sibley 28) Chance! Sibley goes down the track to Yasir, misses it completely, and Rizwan fumbles a straightforward stumping chance!

26th over: England 72-1 (Crawley 34, Sibley 31) Shan Masood has a bowl. He is a very occasional Test bowler, haing bowled in one Test in 2016, one in 2017, one in 2018, two in 2019 (albeit more than 11 months apart) and one in 2019. He has never bowled more than five overs in an innings, or six in a calendar year.

25th over: England 69-1 (Crawley 34, Sibley 28) Sibley also has a go at Yasir, hitting nicely through midwicket for four and then cutting a little over-fine, the ball flying not far wide of slip for three.

24th over: England 61-1 (Crawley 33, Sibley 21) A lovely cover drive from Crawley brings four runs. “My late grandfather was a butcher who always said that you wouldn’t eat sausages if you new what was in them,” writes Richard O’Hagan. “Having now learned that people scoff them raw or put the devil’s own fennel in them, I’m inclined to agree with him.” Now don’t you start on fennel, about which I feel much as Matt Whitton (20th over) does about the Lorne sausage.

23rd over: England 57-1 (Crawley 29, Sibley 21) Yasir Shah brings some spin, and after a couple of balls Crawley goes on the attack, lifting the ball way over the fielder at mid-off for four. Next ball he goes again, but he doesn’t get hold of this one and gets a single to mid-on.

22nd over: England 52-1 (Crawley 24, Sibley 21) Shaheen bowls a rubbish full toss at Sibley, who rather like a diner faced with a platter of ossenworst could have tucked in but decides not to. Maiden.

21st over: England 52-1 (Crawley 24, Sibley 21) “I’m quite resentful that there’s been all this sausage discussion without any attempt to canvas my opinion?” writes Kim Thonger. “As a man who’s been known to make a round trip on East Midlands Trains from Northamptonshire to St Pancras, seldom an uplifting experience, and then cycle on a Boris bike to and from Terroni’s in Clerkenwell, solely to secure supplies of their fennel sausage for a light kitchen supper, I feel my voice must be heard. And well done Somerset for thumping Warwickshire by the way. If ever a county was fuelled largely by sausage, it’s Somerset, despite claims that we live on cheddar and raw onion. That’s just breakfast.”

20th over: England 51-1 (Crawley 24, Sibley 20) A no-ball and a wide from Afridi. “Two thoughts,” writes Matt Whitton. “1. You’re teetering towards the same semantic cul-de-sac that pie enthusiasts lose themselves – the Lorne is certainly a sausage, despite not being traditionally encased, and is a magnificent example. 2, As far as I’m aware said sausage is named after the Lorne Hotel in Glasgow, where it was invented.” We’re certainly at risk of lapsing into a game of Lorne tennis, which is best saved for our Wimbledon game-by-game coverage.

19th over: England 49-1 (Crawley 24, Sibley 20) Another Sibley boundary to third man, this off an edge, and that’s DRINKS. “Raw meatloaf? Away and raffle yourself, square (Lorne) sausage is a delight on a par with a Graham Thorpe cut to the boundary and only a scoundrel would suggest otherwise,” fumes Allan MacDonald. It may very well be delicious, it just fails my sausage-classification test on a number of counts.

18th over: England 45-1 (Crawley 24, Sibley 16) Sibley turns on the run tap, clipping past backward square for two and the cutting to third man for four. Having taken 44 balls to get to nine, he very nearly doubles his tally in five. England have meanwhile officially avoided the follow-on.

17th over: England 38-1 (Crawley 24, Sibley 9) A lovely ball here from Naseem Shah, who tempts Crawley into a drive and just beats the edge. “I’ve tried ossenworst (10th over) and enjoyed it,” reports Adrian Armstrong. “It’s best treated as a pâté rather than a sausage – spoon it out of its casing and spread it on crusty bread. Quite strongly spiced, but not hot like nduja. Doesn’t keep long after opening, as you can imagine.”

16th over: England 35-1 (Crawley 22, Sibley 8) Abbas gets one to jag into Crawley and near enough slice him in two. “Having just spent a week in the Toulouse region, yeah the sausages are the best in the known world,” gloats Alistair Connor. “Driving home to Lyon through the Massif Central, we happened to stop in the village of Eygrande in the Limousin, where the butcher’s sign proclaims him “le Roi du Boudin”. So obviously I had to get some of his royal black sausage, which I was obliged to chuck in the freezer when we got home, because my wife occasionally remembers she’s a Muslim (but only if there’s no pata negra available).”

On the downside, you’re presumably unable to leave the house for two weeks because of quarantine regulations. On the plus side, royal boudin.

15th over: England 35-1 (Crawley 22, Sibley 8) Still four slips in place, as Pakistan go all out for the 19 wickets they need to take in the next couple of hours if they’re going to win this.

14th over: England 34-1 (Crawley 21, Sibley 8) Swoosh! Abbas tempts Sibley into pushing his bat towards the ball, which holds up off the seam and goes just past! The batsman learns his lesson from that and leaves the remaining two deliveries, the last of which cuts in slightly and can’t have missed off stump by much.

13th over: England 34-1 (Crawley 21, Sibley 8) Naseem Shah replaces Afridi, and Crawley edges, but it drops short of first slip! “I realise that Glasgow isn’t exactly a hotbed of cricket fandom and that’s probably why there’s been no mention of it but your assertion that Toulouse is the finest named-after-a-place sausage is nonsense,” rages Bill Criggie. “The Lorne (Named after Lorne in Argyll) or ‘square’ sausage is the best sausage full stop. That can be the only explanation for why we used to have to take some smuggled in a suitcase to family friends who lived in the south of France.”

Pah. There’s been some kind of foul-up in the foodstuff-naming department: that isn’t sausage, it’s raw meatloaf.

12th over: England 33-1 (Crawley 21, Sibley 8) There are four slips in place as Abbas bowls at Sibley, but he takes them all out of play by angling it wide of leg, and the batsman clips it away for a couple. Abbas does it again a couple of balls later, but Sibley clips straight to the man at square leg.

11th over: England 31-1 (Crawley 21, Sibley 6) Crawley chips over the man at midwicket and runs a streaky three.

10th over: England 27-1 (Crawley 18, Sibley 6) “I wonder if anyone has tried Ossenworst?” writes Chris Barry. “My advice is don’t. I ordered it once in The Netherlands, waving away the advice of my dining companions. ‘What’s the wurst that can happen. It’s obviously sausage of some kind.’ Indeed it was sausage, only raw. I finished it if only to save face. Turns out I could meet a sausage I didn’t like.” I’m struggling to understand the concept of raw sausage. Surely the casing would be all bleeurgh?

9th over: England 26-1 (Crawley 17, Sibley 6) Now Crawley drives down the ground, but he doesn’t quite time it and the outfield isn’t the quickest, so he has to run three. “Brindisa’s Chorizo is very good, but these Toulouse sausages are pretty good too,” insists Charles Sheldrick. No argument from me. The Toulouse is a great sausage, probably the best named-after-a-place sausage. Some Cumberland fans might disagree, but they’d be wrong.

8th over: England 20-1 (Crawley 14, Sibley 5) Abbas goes shortish, and Crawley stands up and pulls past backwards square leg for four, then his last delivery is a bit wide, and Crawley cracks it past point.

7th over: England 12-1 (Crawley 6, Sibley 5) A maiden from Shaheen. Ian Forth and Gina Watson insist Will Hargreaves must have been thinking about Graham Gooch’s bowling impressions. Footage is sadly elusive, but here’s an old Rob Bagchi column on the subject:

6th over: England 12-1 (Crawley 6, Sibley 5) The sun is shining, and the torrential rain that turned the outfield into soup is a distant memory. Mohammad Abbas starts proceedings with a no-ball, and all the runs come off that and the next. There follow a couple of nasty deliveries, one rearing up to hit Crawley around the waist.

Will Hargreaves, is this the action you were wistfully recalling? If so, you owe both Barry Etheridge and Andrew Thomas some gratitude.

A couple of thoughts on the action witnessed on the OBO so far today:

• Chorizo makes the very finest sausage sandwich, bar none. Brindisa’s is a good place to start.
• Bread Ahead’s recipe for babke is the bee’s knees. The key is the seriously enriched (in other words, ludicrously butter-heavy) dough. Sesame babke is at least as good as the more classic chocolate.

Now then, there are actual cricketers on a field in Southampton!

“These circumstances make me wonder if the returning players will take their tasks seriously,” writes Will Hargreaves. “I seem to remember a test from my youth, at Edgbston I think, in similar circumstances, where one of the bowlers took it upon himself to imitate the others. I have to say, everyone recognised his version of the giraffe-plodding, arm-swinging gait of Tony Greig. To do an Ian Botham he asked the umpire for a couple of jumpers, which he then stuffed inside his own. The crowd were all very amused, as I recall: as were the players, I think. I’d love to see a video link if anyone has one, please?”

Anyone?

Hello world! So it falls on me to take you through the conclusion of this Test.

I was going to use the word climax instead of conclusion there, but it dawned on me, thankfully just before I committed to it, that it doesn’t actually refer to the final bit of something but to “the most important or exciting point in a story or situation”, so doesn’t really work here. In fact I think we probably had the climax yesterday, during the first five overs of England’s innings, which Vic Marks wrote about so splendidly:

And just as we get news of some actual sport, my stint is over. Here’s Simon Burnton to guide you through the staggering denouement.

Tea will have been taken by the resumption, and play will go through till 6pm, or till there are 15 overs remaining and everyone’s had enough.

I’m not sure how long it’ll be till the teams are shaking hands, but there it is.

“The glorious 29,” begins Julian Menz. “Each stop evocative of a half-forgotten St Etienne song, my life-line when I moved ‘North’ to the ‘suburbs’ from Covent Garden, and the start of an enduring love affair with Green Lanes.

A lot has changed since the early 90s … the Queen’s Head pub was still wonderfully divey, with the stickiest pool-hall carpet I’ve ever encountered, upholstered beer crates for stools, and the best juke-box north of Camden.

The lamb chops are still the same though. I live abroad now, but get the 29 every time I’m back. Just for those perfect, crispy-fat beauties.”

I think it’s gone now, replaced by Dogtas furniture – but it’s not really my section of the route, so I could be wrong.

I just came across this, which is nice. I remember being at a summer scheme when Javed scored his double century at the Oval in 1987 – the Pakistani kids were loving it and giving it loads. Looking back, it was probably my introduction to the multicultural beauty of London.