Pakistan in Coomanding Possition

Lunch Pakistan 272 and 320 for 4 (Misbah-ul-Haq 85*, Umar Akmal 7*, Roach 1-53) lead West Indies 223 by 369 runs

Taufeeq Umar's fifth Test hundred - and first for nearly eight years - put Pakistan in a commanding position on the fourth morning of the second Test against West Indies in Basseterre, St Kitts. Captain Misbah-ul-Haq accompanied him through an initially meandering and then urgent session in a 129-run partnership. The hosts stood not so much in the way as opponents, but as bemused, helpless bystanders. Pakistan are 369 runs ahead already, only the question of when the declaration will come a concern now.

Attention initially was on Taufeeq and the three runs he needed to reach his hundred. It took three overs for him to get his first run of the day and not until the seventh over of the morning did he get there, a little dink to square leg bringing it up.

There wasn't much else to note - he scored eight runs in the first hour - other than some handy stats: this was only the third Test hundred by Pakistan since the beginning of 2010 and, interestingly, it meant that three of their last four Test hundreds have been made by left-handed openers (Imran Farhat and Salman Butt the others).

Misbah was more interesting, though that is a relative observation. His eighth fifty since becoming Test captain was in that typical all or nothing manner of his. There were stretches of no runs and much of that soul-destroying forward defensive, mixed with bouts of smart boundary-hitting.

He'd begun the morning with a nice drive, before he suddenly leapt on Darren Sammy, in realisation perhaps that he isn't half as dangerous a bowler as Pakistan make him look. In one over he twice clipped him through midwicket before gliding him past slips to end the over. Along the way the fifty partnership came up.

Then, nothing until after drinks when a triptych of sweeps against Devendra Bishoo brought him the fifty; first he swept him, then slog-swept for boundaries, ending with a reverse-swept single. That signalled an assault. A little later came the Misbah signature, the one-kneed loft to long-on for six and Bishoo was regularly punished thereafter as Pakistan pillaged 63 runs in the 10 overs before lunch.

What the West Indies were doing on the field nobody knows. They came out with the intensity of a corpse, opening with Ravi Rampaul and Sammy, and choosing not to take a new ball; do they not know the fragility of Pakistan's batting?

From the time the first ball was bowled, they appeared beaten, waiting, hoping for a declaration. Taufeeq and Misbah chose not to hurt them in the first hour, but as lunch approached they prepped up, doing pretty much as they pleased. Taufeeq's run-out towards lunch was, fittingly, much of his own making - lazy and uninterested