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| Swann celebrated after taking early quick wickets |
Swann struck in his first over and claimed three more in a wonderful spell which, at one stage, included 67 consecutive dot balls as he bowled 17 maidens in an 24-over unchanged spell until being given a break shortly before tea. His dismissal of Imran Farhat will go down as one of the finest balls of his career and when Swann claimed his fourth shortly after lunch England will have expected a rapid conclusion to the match, but were frustrated by the dead bats of Haider and Amin.
Stuart Broad became particularly agitated after a caught behind appeal off Haider - who avoided a king pair after being given lbw first ball - was reviewed but there wasn't enough evidence to over-turn the not-out decision from Steve Davis. Broad looked perplexed and talked with the umpire then, in his following over, hurled the ball back at Haider in his follow through which led the umpires to speak to Andrew Strauss.
Broad then couldn't take the chance of a run out when his throw from point was miles over Swann's head at the bowler's end when Amir would have been well short of his ground. Alastair Cook also gave Amir a life when he dropped a chance at silly point off Paul Collingwood and by tea the pair had faced 215 balls between them.
Swann was introduced towards the end of the opening hour, after the quicks failed to break through, and began with a magical piece of bowling to remove Farhat as his third ball dipped in towards leg stump then gripped and turned past a lunging batsman to take the top of off stump. A year ago Swann produced a pearler on this ground to remove Ricky Ponting, but today's delivery has every right to be the finest of his career.
Swann, though, was just getting started. He then produced a Ponting-like ball to remove Azhar Ali as the right hander was suckered into driving against the spin and was bowled through the gate. There was almost a third for Swann straight away when Umar Akmal showed his complete lack of understanding of Test cricket by charging his first delivery, another one which spun through the gate, but Matt Prior couldn't make a tough take.
It was with some irony, then, that Akmal's innings was ended in the most defensive fashion as he padded up to a straight ball from Swann. He tried to save himself with a review, but the ball was clipping the bails. Another beautiful piece of bowling from Swann did for Umar Amin as the left hander was beaten by sharp turn and overbalanced out of his crease as Prior completed a sharp stumping.
Farhat and Azhar had done well to survive the early exchanges as the quicks continued to find plenty of help even though it was the sunniest morning of the series. Both showed far more intent than the previous evening (or the first innings) to produce just Pakistan's second fifty partnership of the series, although Farhat was given a life on 15 when Collingwood spilled a rare chance at third slip and struck a nasty blow on the helmet from Broad.
There was also a curious moment when Broad was convinced he'd had Azhar caught behind and, as he has a habit of doing, didn't turn around to the umpire in his appeal. Prior wasn't convinced and Strauss wasn't drawn into the review which proved correct as the batsman missed the ball by six inches leaving Broad looking a little embarrassed.
The only strike for a pacemen went to Steven Finn who wasn't quite at his accurate best, but extracted troublesome bounce from the surface. In his fifth over of the session he jagged one back at Shoaib Malik who couldn't drop his hands quick enough and the ball flicked the glove to Prior.
Finn, though, couldn't complete the session as he fell over in his follow through - for the first time this series having done it regularly against Bangladesh - and hurt his left foot. He wasn't used during the afternoon session by Strauss but with Pakistan's unexpected resistance he may be needed to finish off the tail.
