England must address their issues with mopping up the tail – lower order runs are costing them and Ben Stokes needs help from those around him, writes NASSER HUSSAIN

Mopping up the tail has become a problem for England and is something they must address.

They often look like they have really strong plans at the start of an innings and quickly get a side six or seven down, but towards the end of an innings, they leak vital lower order runs.

It happened for England on Friday when they reduced Pakistan to 177 for seven, before allowing them to get 344. And it happened in the last Test, when they dropped Salman Ali Agha twice in an over in Pakistan’s second innings and instead of chasing less than 200, they had to chase 297, which proved too many.

In fact, England have on average conceded more runs for the last three wickets than any other Test team since Ben Stokes took over as captain.

It is hard to put your finger on why that is the case. Maybe it is because Stokes puts so much energy into captaining and gets fatigued. He gives everything into getting those first seven wickets, then perhaps he starts thinking it is going to happen as opposed to making it happen.

Ben Stokes and Co reduced Pakistan to 177 for seven but they went onto score 344

Stokes needs help from those around him – including vice captain Ollie Pope – when he is struggling

Or maybe England just run out of gas a little bit in the field. The mantra of Brendon McCullum and Stokes is ‘chase everything’ – and they do that for 70 overs. But the ante is upped even more towards the end of an innings, when the lower order start belting it, and you can easily lose the plot.

When partnerships are beginning to build down the order, Stokes needs people around him – players like his vice-captain Ollie Pope or a bowler – to take more responsibility and say, “Right, let’s change the plan a little bit here, Skip”.

That’s where England are maybe missing a bit of Stuart Broad or Jimmy Anderson, senior players who can take over and say, “Which direction are we going in? What are we trying to do here?”.

It is a concern for England and there is no easy solution. Tailenders nowadays are a lot better than they were when I was playing. Just look at how well Noman Ali and Sajid Khan batted on Friday.

The two things you generally want against tailenders are pace and mystery spin. But when England have had pace, with someone like Mark Wood, they have still struggled against the tail because they have gone to short pitch bowling too often.

On Friday in Rawalpindi, they had the mystery spinner in Rehan Ahmed, which is why I was surprised he did not bowl more. He bamboozled Pakistan’s middle order before lunch and I would have kept him on afterwards, just to see if they were picking him or not.

Stokes was also quite defensive in his tactics throughout the day, which is so unlike him. Having seen the pitch on the first day, he probably felt it was only a matter of time before one kept low or spun to produce a wicket. He maybe saw it as a low scoring game and so he was worried about giving away boundaries.

He had a lot of men on the boundary, when normally he would have them 20 yards in to tempt the batter. At no stage did he tempt Saud Shakeel, who just took the runs on offer. He knocked it around perfectly and reached his hundred with 71 singles.

England are perhaps missing senior players that can get around him and give advice or ask questions

Saud Shakeel took easy runs on offer as he scored a century that featured 71 singles in his innings

I feel as though Jack Leach needs to work on his variation in order to deceive batters better

I also think Jack Leach needs to work on his variation. You are a product of your environment and Leach has been brought up on a spinning pinch at Taunton, where he just has to fire it in at one pace and let the pitch do the rest.

But Noman has been brought up on flatter pitches in Pakistan and has had to learn to deceive the batter before it lands.

His dismissal of Pope was a classic example of that. Pope thought it was a regulation forward defence, but the ball dropped on him and was 6kmph slower, so he ended up pushing forward and gloving it, when he could have played it off the back foot. He was deceived in the flight.

Leach needs to learn from Noman and deceive the batter better by changing his pace and using flight and guile.