Pakistan’s fight back impresses coach Mickey Arthur

Pakistan cricket head coach Mickey Arthur has expressed delight over his side's performance against England in the ongoing first Test at historic Lords.

"We're incredibly happy with the position that we're in, but we know it's not finished yet. We've still got a hell of a lot of work to do," Arthur said, quoted ICC.

Arthur was of the view that the performance comes after lot of hard work and training that Pakistan underwent ahead of the two Tests series. "We've prepared really well. We had 10 days together in Lahore before we came out here. At the camp we had bowling machines firing away at the batsmen and we had our bowlers running in at them. We concentrated on playing the ball a lot later and playing it under our eyes.

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"Asad Shafiq, for example, his positions were outstanding and that's not something that happens by accident. There's a lot of hard work that goes into that," said Arthur.

The Pakistan batting line batted sensibly, with batsmen including Azhar Ali, Shafiq, Shadab Khan and Babar Azam scoring their fifties. Azam remained the top scorer with the bat with 68 runs, before he was retired hurt.

However, the fact that no Pakistani batsman went on to score big did disappoint Arthur. "That is slightly disappointing," he said. "But I've always felt that there's a little bit in this wicket. Batters have said they felt they haven't really felt in on it. The killer innings is played once you're set and the ball isn't doing much, but there was always something on offer.”

"I was so impressed with the way we fought as a unit. We fought really hard. We wanted runs from everybody - we asked for them this morning - and numbers seven and eight (Shadab and Faheem) came to the part,” he said.

At the end of day two, Pakistan were 350 for eight — a lead of 166 runs after they bowled England out for 184 in their first innings.