Cricket Second Test:  One ball from Steve Harmison as the shadows drew in marred a triumphant day for England. With Andrew Strauss's late declaration 342 runs ahead allowing his bowlers four overs at the Pakistan openers, and the crowd expectant of more pyrotechnics from the strike bowler, his opening delivery homed in not on the breast bone of Imran Farhat but that of Strauss himself, standing at second slip.

Immediately Harmison grimaced, began stretching and then rubbing the area around his left ribcage and was in obvious discomfort. Ignoring urgent instructions from Kirk Russell, the England physiotherapist, to abandon the over and leave the field, he completed it, before walking down to third man where by now Russell was waiting. Some more stretching, a bit of persuasion, and the pair walked back into the pavilion.

That Harmison felt able to use his own judgment as to how he felt was commendable, although given the proximity to the day's end, and the need to get stuck into Pakistan with real vigour this morning, he might have felt it prudent to be cautious.

However, the fact that he continued bowling would seem to indicate that it was no more than a twinge rather than the pulled intercostal muscle that bowlers dread, an injury that would certainly bring to a close a season already abbreviated.

It was instructive, too, to see Geraint Jones behind the stumps because during the course of his brief innings of eight, against the new ball, he was struck twice by sharply rising deliveries on the ring finger of his right hand, the second occasion causing him to pull his hand from the bat handle as if it had been connected to the national grid. The digit may well be cracked but with Chris Read waiting in the wings, he will not wish to leave the door even faintly ajar: there is a bit of bullet-biting to be done.

Until the final few minutes, England, led by Alastair Cook and then Ian Bell, had swept all before them. It is a doughty cricketer who has the confidence and ability to take advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself but twice now, in the space of a fortnight, Bell has done just that. Had Andrew Flintoff been fit and firing, Bell would not have played at Lord's and not scored a memorable hundred. Nor, for the same reason, would he have had the chance at Old Trafford.

No matter. Yesterday, with just the tail for company for the most part, he played the innings of his life to score his fourth Test century and his second in successive matches. Coming in at number six, with England 169 ahead but by no means secure, he had made just 19 when Sajid Mahmood arrived at the crease. There was a time when the innings would have folded, but Bell found allies, playing for the cause.

The seventh wicket produced 36, the eighth, with Matthew Hoggard, 27, the ninth with Harmison, 73, and he was just embarking on some last-wicket fun with Monty Panesar when Strauss called a close to the innings at 461 for nine. By then, Bell, over the course of little more than three and a half hours, had reached 106, an innings studded with strokes of real elegance and touched with sublime timing that brought 13 fours and a six from just 135 balls.

Earlier, Cook, 65 overnight, had completed his third Test match hundred and went on to make 127 before he was lbw after lunch. And, after Kevin Pietersen had been dismissed by the day's second legitimate delivery, there was a gritty, if less fluent 48 from Paul Collingwood, all of which allowed Strauss the luxury of a tactical declaration.

Bell yesterday looked the player England hoped he would become when first identified as the best young Warwickshire batsman of his time.

Guardian Service