Pitch in Third Test ‘will only get worse’, warns England’s Jamie Smith

• Wicketkeeper says sweep shot is ‘near on impossible’
• Sajid Khan: ‘Wickets don’t get given to you here’

Jamie Smith said the third Test, and with it the series, “will be decided by small margins” on a wicket that has already troubled batters and promises worse to come. “People didn’t quite know what to expect from that surface,” he said after 13 wickets fell on the opening day. “I can only see it getting worse from here.”

While many of his teammates struggled to score, Smith hit six of the day’s seven sixes – “It was more luck than judgment with some of those,” he said – and five fours as England fought back from 98 for five and 118 for six to post a first-innings total of 267. Pakistan ended the day on 73 for three in reply.

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Source: Cricket - The Guardian