Pakistan hold a slender advantage

Cricket/Test match: After three days of generally undistinguished bowling, England and Pakistan stood pretty much neck and neck last night.

Under the hammer for all but the last half-hour of the first two sessions yesterday, as Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf extended their third wicket partnership to mammoth proportions, England - with a blend of good fortune, endeavour, a moment of high comedy to get rid of Inzamam-ul-Haq and a boundary catch by Monty Panesar - came back strongly to concede only a slender first innings deficit, 23, where at one stage it appeared they might be crushed. beneath the sheer weight of runs being piled up around them.

With no thought of a nightwatchman for either or indeed both, Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Strauss, in gathering gloom, survived without undue alarm the nasty little two overs they had to face before the close, scoring three runs, and unless the pussy-cat pitch transforms into a feral monster (uneven bounce for the pacemen perhaps, a bit of cloud cover to help the ball swing, or some bite for the spinner) it is hard to see how there will be time for either side to force a win.

Until Steve Harmison removed Yousuf and the fall of three wickets in the space of 10 balls before tea further transformed the day, the talk already had been of triple centuries, and the chance England might squander a first innings of 515 and lose.

For the five and three quarter hours they were together Younis and Yousuf had the bowling on a piece of string, their third wicket partnership, begun on Saturday afternoon, destined to reach 363, outstripping that for any Pakistan wicket against England.

Yousuf, who reached his century first thing in the morning with a hooked six, had reached 192 when, for no discernable reason, Harmison began to surge urgently down the hill from the Kirkstall Lane end just as Bob Willis had done 25 years earlier.

The first ball of an over was all but chopped on to his stumps by Yousuf, with the next searing past his nose. The third - short again but on the line of his body - he might have been attempting to glance except this too rose disproportionately to anything else during the day, flicked his glove and went through to Chris Read. In five and three quarter hours he had hit 25 fours and a brace of sixes. Throughout the stand, Inzamam watched and waited. He began by cutting and pulling Harmison to the boundary and had ambled to 26 when he called Younis, 173 by then, for a single to midwicket and set off.

Sajid Mahmood's hit from midwicket proved more than adequate to send back Inzamam's vice-captain. Of such carelessness are events set in motion. The bowler, Paul Collingwood had waited more than 63 overs for a Test wicket, but now he nipped his next ball back into the pad of Faisal Iqbal and gained a decision from Billy Doctrove.

Eight balls later, and Inzamam exceeded his potential for farce by attempting to sweep Panesar, and, trying to maintain his balance, dislodged the bails. He compounded things by draping himself over his stumps as Inzie was forced to pick himself up, dust himself down but rather than start again, trail despondently to the dressing room.

From 399 for two it had become 451 for six, with the defences breached. It gave renewed heart to the bowlers, with Mahmood collecting the wickets of Kamran Akmal and Umar Gul, and Panesar gaining two late wickets, although not before Shahid Nazir and Kaneria, with Trescothick and Strauss no doubt willing them on at this stage (the final wicket in the last 10 minutes of the day would have suited them just fine) had given Pakistan the lead with a 10th-wicket stand of 42.