Usman acknowledged Pakistan had let England score “too many runs” and was willing to shoulder part of the blame in what he considered a collective bowling failure. “Our bowling was not up to standard today, including myself. I took five wickets but we’ve given away too many runs as a bowling unit. We’ll work on our mistakes and try not to repeat them.”
Once introduced, though, Usman did offer some control, even if he fell away during parts of the day. Towards the end, though, he felt he was finding some assistance from the wicket, and in the final half-hour, he capitalized on it.
“I wanted to bowl within the stumps,” Usman said. “If they got even a bit of room, they were scoring runs. Dan Lawrence was struggling a bit against spin. But Harry Brook uses his feet very well, so he was harder to bowl to. That’s how I ended up taking the wicket I did.”
With the light fading in the extra half hour, Usman inflicted another quick double-blow, trapping Gus Atkinson in front before beating Ollie Robinson’s outside edge with his best delivery of the game. It gave him a five-wicket haul, the first for a visiting spinner at Headingley since 1972.
“Today, when I started bowling, it felt like the ball was gripping. It made me think there was something in it for the spinner. I tried to hit the right areas and that’s where I got wickets.”
Usman refused to write the game off as a lost cause, saying the pitch was bringing spin into the game more as it slowed. While Pakistan have Usman to rely on, England are not playing a specialist spinner, depending solely on Lawrence if required.
“I think day-by-day the wicket is slowing down,” Usman said. “It’s slow already, it’s not especially fast, but on the next three days it’s going to take a lot more turn.”
To take it anywhere near as far as that, though, he acknowledged Pakistan would have to have a near-perfect time with the bat once they get on tomorrow.
“In the batting, we’ll try to take it as deep as possible and score as many runs as we can. Our approach should be positive with the bat. We need to take it session by session. Anything can happen. We’re positive as a batting unit. We’ve scored runs in the West Indies and the warm-up game. Our batters are in form, so we hope they do well and we’re able to salvage this match.”
