Ollie Pope tried to drive the off-spinner against the spin through the off side and was caught and bowled. The safest way has always been to play with the spin until you are set with plenty of runs against your name. Pope is always a frenetic starter who jabs at the ball with hard hands. It is time he learnt to relax – after all he has now played 51 Tests.

He should watch Joe Root, who gets right the way forward to smother the ball but hardly ever lets the bat get past his front pad and relaxes the hands. When playing back, keep the bat close to the body and wait for the ball… don’t push at it.

The sweep and reverse sweep is a modern way of batting against spinners and some Test match connoisseurs get upset watching it.

Every era throws up changes but our guys give the impression that some kind of sweep is their first thought, or only thought. That can’t be smart. I understand that if a bowler’s best ball is scored off it can upset his rhythm and force him to alter his length or line thereby giving the batsman other opportunities. 

Spinning pitches have been around since cricket was invented and batsmen of yesteryear scored runs without too much sweeping. DRS now makes orthodox sweeping more dangerous, whereas the reverse sweep looks a better option. I think sweeping would be better used occasionally, and mixed in with the orthodox, safer strokes.

For me the biggest plus out of the defeat was the bowling of Brydon Carse and Matthew Potts. There was very little in the pitch for the seamers, in fact Pakistan only selected one faster bowler, yet England’s two quicks kept running in with great spirit and determination. 

As hot and energy sapping as it was, they just kept going. In those conditions it would have been easy to get dispirited and let their pace drop. Neither of them did that.

Finding Carse is South Africa’s loss and a huge gain for England. He has good pace and aggression together with a high action that gives him occasional uncomfortable bounce from a good length. That was disconcerting to some of the Pakistani batsmen on a nothing pitch. 

They started to sit back and were not keen to get forward. When they did get forward sometimes their weight was not over the ball. If Carse can do that to batsmen on a dead pitch for seamers then think what he can do on a surface with more pace and bounce. Please stay fit and if he does that, then England may just have found ‘a real good ‘un’ as they say in Yorkshire.