Moeen Ali dropped early on and went on to score 108. The match situation could have been very different. As it is England in a good position after at one stage being 110/5.

As I stated in the last Test, never judge a pitch, until both sides have batted. Me thinks, this match could well be very close by the end.

Did the pitch even out as the day progressed?

I'd like to know the same.

Forecast is mostly sun. I'm thinking this might be a road for a couple of days.

Would like to see Eng drift before another ball is bowled, they do need another 19 wickets after all.........hoping that will happen when everyone see how sunny it is.

England are crazy short. Say pakistan are all out for 180, which is very optimistic, can they go any lower than 1.15?

on the other hand they have the potential to unravel to 4+ if pakistan look like posting a lead and are still batting tomorrow.

if they remain competitive and this wicket flattens out, we're looking at situation where Cook will want to protect the series first before winning the match. and if he can't, well pakistan are in the match.

England are 1.66 here for me. Yes they'll well placed, and they could still destroy pakistan, but that's not happened yet. Market working on the basis that the wicket is going to be as difficult today as it was yesterday, which i'd be very surprised by.  With grey skies forecast tomorrow, and clear weather today, it will almost certainly be the best of the first three days for batting.

Agree with DStyle, up to a point, although even if the deck is pretty flat, Pak already one down, flaky with the bat and England's attack is very good. If there's any swing they could fall in a heap. Even so, I've had a draw back to lay at 9.6 and a big England lay in. If I'd only got my early draw lay hit at 3.5 I'd be in absolute clover but as it is I'm very exposed on England. If Pak bat well I'm going to be very well placed though as tiny red on them at the moment £1.6k red England and £7k draw green with lays set up a long way down.

I have laid Eng with the little green I had by backing them and laying Pakistan.

'Looking after the ball' is just a nice term for ball tampering after the brits figured out how it was done. When Pakistan did it in the 90s it was called tampering.

And its still the same. You cant reverse the ball without tampering with it. Its another matter how you want to define tampering and looking after the ball. I actually came across some video the other day about how Root was using his thumb while shining the ball in the last test :D

A big difference between picking at the seam and the outside of the ball with your nails, and simply protecting one side of the ball.

There was some talk yes but both sides dismissed it
Anyone can post allegations on twitter

SA were penalised for ball scratching werent they?
Joe Root was just polishing the ball

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IB8w2m1ZZU
How can anyone think this is "unlawful alteration of the surface or seam"

Yeah I watched the same footage. As i said, it was a bad attempt at proving they were tampering. In fact horrible.

New Ball I sense wickets tbh

Interesting footage on SA cheating, had no idea Vernon Philanderer was a cheat!

that loses im gonna have to quit. Ive lost two bets today in the most disgusting ways possible so im obviously not up to it

Doesnt take beefy long to start

was gonna say the same tom,how long til Holding gets on the gloat train

had a small lay of England too, dont like it that Shah is in but don't want him to survive for a bit and Eng be out to 1.5