England are closely monitoring the fitness of Ben Duckett after the opener sustained a suspected dislocated thumb on his left hand while fielding on the second day of the opening Test against Pakistan. This injury forced him to miss the start of his team’s first innings. Sources within the England camp expressed optimism that Duckett would be fit to bat on Wednesday after resting the injury overnight. However, there are no immediate plans for a scan, and his condition will be fully assessed once any swelling subsides. The team cannot afford to lose a key player, especially as they need all the batting depth they can muster to challenge Pakistan’s first-innings total of 556.
With Zak Crawley, England’s other first-choice opener, recently returning from a broken finger also sustained while fielding at slip, Ollie Pope stepped in for Duckett and was dismissed for a duck. Despite this, Crawley’s run-a-ball 64 and Joe Root’s 32 took England to 96 for one at the close, still 460 runs behind. Brydon Carse, who claimed the first two wickets of his Test career by dismissing Naseem Shah and Aamir Jamal, noted the tough conditions for everyone on the field.
The key moment of the day came when Chris Woakes’ brilliant, juggling catch on the boundary was ruled out due to a foot brushing the turf on the wrong side of the padding. Salman Agha, the reprieved batter, went on to score an unbeaten 104. Salman proved particularly adept at nursing the tail, hitting 10 fours and three sixes to take his team’s score from 393 for six to an ultimately daunting total.
