Live Score card of Pakistan tour of England, 2nd Test at Birmingham!

Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat

Salman Butt has taken the brave decision to put his brittle batting line-up into the firing line straight away at Edgbaston after winning the toss on a cloudy morning. As revealed yesterday evening Mohammad Yousuf doesn't make the starting XI after his dash from Pakistan while Kamran Akmal has been dropped.

England, meanwhile, have had far fewer concerns and as expected have named an unchanged team with Andrew Strauss not overly worried about bowling first. He expects some help for his in-form pace attack - including James Anderson playing his 50th Test - on a ground where England have often excelled, although there will be less support than normal as half the venue is currently a building site.

The build-up to this Test has been dominated by the will-he, won't-he guessing game surrounding Yousuf's hasty call-up to the squad. In the end he didn't feel ready to come straight into a Test so Pakistan's batting line-up contains the same personnel as last week although they have juggled the order with Shoaib Malik moving to No. 4.

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Live Score card of Pakistan tour of England, 1st Test at Nottingham!

Unpredictable Anderson finds his birthday best

The second day at Trent Bridge was James Anderson's 28th birthday, and it began for him in a somewhat lugubrious fashion. Before the start of play he was serenaded by his tuneless team-mates and presented with a cupcake by two of the press photographers, a pair of gestures that left him more bemused than touched. His mood had not improved by the time Mohammad Asif pinned him lbw for a first-ball duck - his second in four home Tests and, after a memorable run of 54 duckless innings from his debut in 2003, his third blob in the space of 11 months.

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