• I can pick him the majority of the time, Cook said
• Pakistan off-spinner finally gets the opener for 94
Alastair Cook argued that England took a major step towards solving the mystery of Saeed Ajmal on the second day of the second Test in Abu Dhabi, despite the three late wickets for Pakistan's smiling assassin that denied him a century and plunged an absorbing game back into the balance.
There was another failure for Andrew Strauss but England were on course for a substantial first-innings lead when Cook and Jonathan Trott shared a second-wicket partnership of 139 in 50 overs that relied equally on skill and restraint. Ajmal, who had routed England with 10 wickets in Pakistan's first Test victory in Dubai, was growing increasingly frustrated as his doosra did no damage, and he granted Trott a reprieve by declining the opportunity to review a leg-before appeal that had been turned down by the on-field umpire.
Pakistan then made two unsuccessful appeals to the television umpire against Trott in the space of four overs, using up their allocation for the innings and adding to the apparent strength of England's position.
However that proved deceptive, as after Trott had been bowled by Abdur Rehman, one of Ajmal's support spinners, the main man threatened to re-establish his hold over England. Having gone almost 25 overs without a wicket, he dismissed Cook, Kevin Pietersen and Eoin Morgan in the space of six overs, to leave England on 207 for five – still 50 runs behind, having lost four wickets for 41 in the last 21 overs of the day.
"They jumped in very well at the end," said Cook, who fell six short of a 20th Test century that would have taken him level with his Essex and England mentor Graham Gooch. "But we've still had a good day – the last half-hour just turned it from a very good day.
"We probably played him [Ajmal] better than we did in Dubai. When you face a guy a little bit more as a batter you just tend to feel a bit more comfortable."
In almost five hours at the crease, Cook also reckoned he had begun to pick Ajmal's dreaded doosra, although it undid him in the end. "Some of the time, yeah – about 80%," he added. "As the ball gets older, the seam is less pronounced, so it becomes slightly harder. But yeah, I do think I can pick him the majority of the time. Like any batter, you make mistakes. It's trying to get the technique so you can adjust to them. It's trying to pick up as many clues as you can. Obviously his action does change a little bit, but I've always tried to read the ball as well.
"We set our stall out to bat for a long period of time. In these conditions, when the partnership gets going it's hard to break because not too much happens – you get used to the conditions as a batter and suddenly the ones you're not timing in the first hour or so you feel a bit more at ease with it. It's just a matter of getting through that first hour and everything doesn't seem quite as hard – you can get into a groove. It's just having the skill to get through that as the new guy coming in."
One area in which England have definitely been on top is in their application of the umpire decision review system. Whereas Pakistan spurned an appeal that would have been upheld, then had two subsequent referrals rejected, England have yet to use up either of their two lives, with Cook even rejecting the opportunity when he was given out – on the advice of Pietersen, who was at the non-striker's end.
"I was tempted, but I got the nod from Kev," he explained. "It's almost a tactical thing with the referral system – the ball only has to be clipping anything once you've been given out by the umpire [for the decision to be upheld], so you have to think it's a shocker to refer an lbw.
"It has changed the way you play spin over the last couple of years – you keep your pad out of the way as much as you can, because it doesn't matter how big the stride is. Gone are the days when you're OK because you're a long way down. But certainly it's a skill as the captain of a fielding side to try and use DRS well to try and get the one that does matter."