Pakistan v England / Ralph Ellis / 24 January 2012 /

With England's opening pair about to step out together for 100th time, Ralph Ellis pays tribute to a steady, successful partnership which is integral to the world's best team. Can they engineer victory against Pakistan in the second Test?

Funny how you never quite realise the excellence of your own team. Get asked to choose Test cricket's greatest ever opening pair and you'd easily name the devastating Aussie combination of Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer; although you might plump instead for Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes.

What you probably wouldn't do, yet, is put Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook into that bracket. And yet here they will be, in the next couple of days, joining an elite band of just four opening pairs who have stepped out to begin a Test match innings together on 100 occasions. (If you're struggling to recall the others they are the Sri Lankans Marvan Atapattu and Sanath Jayasuriya. I didn't get them either!)

Maybe it's because Cook and Strauss have always been an understated act. While Hayden and Langer were raw power, and Greenidge and Haynes went for extravagant and devastating shots, our two left-handers tend to just accumulate their runs. Nothing fancy, nothing flash, nothing unorthodox. And yet the numbers add up, 4,163 runs in the 99 innings so far at an average stand of 42.92.

After failing so dismally in the first Test against Pakistan there's all the more reason to back England to do well when the second starts tomorrow morning. As Ian Bell points out in his column in this morning's Independent, they have a track record for following big defeats with big wins - at The Oval after Headingley in 2009 then in Melbourne by an innings after getting hammered in Perth.

The word is that the wicket in Abu Dhabi will be far more of a batsman's paradise than the one in Dubai. And that means even if you don't fancy England enough to lay the [1.58] for Pakistan to win the series, Strauss and his team should do better in this game.

They were dismal in the three-day disaster of a Test that began the series - which was good news only because I'd suggested laying the draw when it was favourite before the start. Given that 75 percent of Tests around the world in the last couple of years have failed to reach day five, I'm amazed the draw can ever be favourite - yet it is again now at [2.18].

If you're searching for a value bet, then you'd certainly fancy England's openers to rise to the occasion of their century of partnerships, and although the market has yet to develop you can already get better than even money at [2.05] for Strauss and Cook to put on more than 40 together in the England Opening Partnership market. That looks great value. Of the Tests played at Abu Dhabi so far, only one innings has failed to pass the 400 mark, so backing at least one England player to score a century at [1.8] looks a winner too.

Five things you might not know about Matthew Hayden

1. Born October 1971 on a farm in Kingaroy, Queensland, his life has gone full circle - he's gone back to farming since he retired from serious cricket

2. As a boy he also developed a passion for cooking. On tour he used to spend time in the hotel kitchens watching and learning from the chefs, and he's had two recipe books published.

3. His early Test career stumbled when he was accused by the Aussie selectors of not being fit enough or a good enough fielder. He finally solved his problems with the help of older brother Gary who had coached him as a child.

4. He was forced to swim a kilometre through shark infested waters to safety when his boat capsized while sailing near Brisbane in 2000. He's since been in campaigns promoting marine safety.

5. He's a keen fisherman - his best catch a 136kg marlin hooked off the coast of St Kitts a few days before hitting a 66 ball century against South Africa on the way to winning the World Cup.

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