Masood gets it right, on a day when little else worked for Pakistan

Shan Masood ran into the stumps.

He was supposed to be bowling some light medium-pace floaters to rest his bowlers' weary bodies. But, first ball, he got it so wrong he kicked the stumps down at the bowler's end.

Pakistan did much the same.

Younis Khan dropped another catch, making it four missed chances from him so far in the series. His work at slip this series is very much like most of the old guys who field at first slip for their local side, except with super-slow cameras for the replays.

Sarfraz Ahmed dropped his second chance behind the stumps, a tough catch off Yasir Shah. He almost caught the fumble, but it wasn't going to be that day. Yasir already knew that, he knew that when he started it with more short balls, when Ben Stokes hit the ball straight up and it landed safely, when people started searching Statsguru for the most-runs-conceded-in-a-Test-match list.

This was not the worst cricket Pakistan can play, but on their scale of one to utter shambles, it was reasonably low. Sure, they were a bit rough in the field, but they are a bit rough in the field. Many of their fielders don't run at the ball, but around it, in a weird curve. Acclaimed actor Iqbal Theba calls it a Jalebi, after the popular curved sweet. And this move is popular, as so many Pakistani fielders use it. At one stage Rahat Ali ran towards the ball with it on his left side, he then performed the Jalebi move, ended up with the ball on his right, then passed it to his left hand so he could finally throw it. It seemed to take longer than Joe Root's innings.

And Joe Root's innings took a long time. A very long time. It was tiring watching it, let alone being out in the field, picking up the ball from the boundary. But it also proved that this was a very good batting wicket. Grant Flower suggested it was a better batting wicket than the previous day.

Pakistan's batsmen went about disproving that. As Flower noted, "a huge score like that plays mind tricks".

The first trick was Mohammad Hafeez looking set, looking fine, looking as good as he has on this tour of England. Then it was Hafeez edging an almost-straight ball to slip, on a great batting pitch. An opening batsman edging to slip is hardly a big deal, and with Hafeez's batting, it would be weirder if he didn't edge to slip. But it ended the illusion of Pakistani top-order stability.

Then Azhar Ali managed to push a normal delivery that didn't stop in the wicket, didn't do any misbehaving of any kind, straight back to Chris Woakes. It was the kind of wicket, on this kind of pitch, in this kind of match, that batsmen think about when they are struggling to fall asleep for decades to come.

Younis then came out, and he was batting as he did at Lord's, as if he was being operated by a drunk puppeteer. His right leg often came out mid-shot as if he was trying to trip a rhinoceros, his footwork was as if he was playing Dance Dance Revolution in his mind, and when he was finally out he had hopped to the wrong side of the pitch, for no cricketing reason, as if he was trying to avoid a puddle. When Younis is dismissed he often goes into a quiet room and rewatches the footage. If he does that for this innings, he may wonder who that old man is batting on a jumpy castle.

If nightwatchmen are a stupid idea (and nightwatchmen are a stupid idea) then sending out the same bloke who, in the dark of the Lord's dusk, decided it was time to play a back-foot cover drive without the skill even to execute a far easier cricket shot on a far better day, was even stupider than the many poor shots Rahat played. Flower said they were weary, he said big scores played tricks. And yet, had they been the weariest men on earth, had they been batting second in the Abu Dhabi heat after a month of fielding against a robot army of Don Bradmans, it would not have been an acceptable reason for Misbah's decision to send in a terrible batsmen, who plays terrible shots, to do a terrible job.

In the end, it was Shan Masood left at the crease. The only time Masood looks like scoring on the off side is when a bowler bowls a short, wide ball so bad that he just has to hit it. Otherwise he is set up to defend, play and miss, and turn everything else to backward square leg.

It is that batsman who survived this self-inflected, weary, tricky carnage. The batsman people see as flawed, limited, and picked because of his family connections. He is the one who batted best and lasted longest. It was that kind of day for Pakistan. The day when Masood bowls, and Masood outlasts four other batsmen.

Shan Masood ran into the stumps when he bowled, but was still the only batsman who didn't run into his stumps.