Stand and delivering

Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook are close to making history. Benedict Bermange has the third Test stats.

Opening pair close to becoming most prolific of all time for England

How's this for an Ashes marker? If England win their Test series against Pakistan by a margin of 3-0 or 4-0 they will move above Australia in the ICC Test Championship Table for the first time since the current system was established in 2003. England's last defeat at The Oval was to Australia in 2001. Since then they have won five and drawn three. However, only once in their last five Tests here has Pakistan's first innings totalled less than 500, averaging 543. James Anderson had 54 Test innings before his first duck (at the Oval a year ago against Australia) - the fourth best start to a career in that respect. However, after those 54 duck-less innings, his zero at Edgbaston was his fourth in 14 innings. Zulqarnain Haider's innings of 88 at Edgbaston took 276 minutes. Only one other batsman has managed to bat for longer than 150 minutes in an innings this summer for Pakistan and he has not reached double figures in this series so far:

Name	Team	Against	Venue	Runs	Mins
Zulqarnain Haider	Pakistan	England	Birmingham	88	276
Salman Butt	Pakistan	Australia	Lord's	92	229
Salman Butt	Pakistan	Australia	Lord's	63	169

Very average

Since the start of 2009 Pakistan's batting has been the worst of all the Test nations - in terms of both batting average (27.34) and centuries per Test (0.53). India top both lists at 51.29 runs per wicket and 2.15 centuries. Their top six have averaged a combined 10.20 in the series so far. Only two teams have ever had worse averages from the top six in a series of two or more matches:

Team	Opp	Season	Mat	Runs	HS	Avge	100	50	0
SA	Eng	1888/89	2	166	29	7.21	0	0	0
Aus	Eng	1888	3	278	32	7.72	0	0	12
Pak	Eng	2010	2	245	38	10.20	0	0	4

For the second time this year Kamran Akmal has been dropped and yet returned to the team one match later. He was left out of the third Test in Australia this January when Sarfraz Ahmed replaced him and it looks like he will return at the expense of Zulqarnain Haider here.

Front-runners

The target for Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook to surpass Jack Hobbs and Herbert Sutcliffe's record for the most runs added by an England opening pair is now down to 67 runs:

Partners	Years	Inns	NO	Runs	High	Ave	100	50
JB Hobbs, H Sutcliffe	1924-1930	38	1	3249	283	87.81	15	10
AN Cook, AJ Strauss	2006-2010	77	2	3183	229	42.44	8	13
L Hutton, C Washbrook	1946-1951	51	3	2880	359	60.00	8	13

Hundreds and thousands

Jonathan Trott needs 77 runs in the first three days to become just the seventh England batsman to reach 1,000 Test runs less than a year after his Test debut. Strauss was the fastest - taking just 228 days. Kevin Pietersen has played four Tests at The Oval and has scored centuries in three of them - being dismissed for 96 in the other - against Pakistan four years ago. Bobby Thomson - the man who won the New York Giants the pennant in 1951 by hitting arguably the most famous home run in baseball history - died yesterday at the age of 86. The closest cricketing equivalent is probably Javed Miandad's six off Chetan Sharma to win the Austral-Asia Cup at Sharjah on 18 April 1986.