England 290 and 177 for 7 (Lawrence 50*, Abbas 3-48) lead Pakistan 110 by 357 runs

But England were four-down within 10 balls of the re-start, when Gay was pinned on the shin by a Mohammad Abbas delivery which kept so cruelly low there was no way out.

Abbas had already threatened with the first ball of the over, which slid past the outside edge of a helpless Gay and the conditions remained challenging for the batters, with the pitch offering scant carry initially but plenty of movement off the seam throughout.

With the ball nipping around, wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan wore a few awkwardly on the hands and body either side of another rain delay lasting about 15 minutes.

Brook fell to one which leapt a little more than expected, kissing the splice of the bat as it flew through to Rizwan to give Abbas his second, before Jamie Smith, top scorer in the first innings, miscued an Abbas nip-backer to square leg.

All the while Lawrence negotiated the jagging ball as well as anyone by playing with genuine aggression while showing off some real poise, despite the stop-start nature of a weather-ravaged innings.

He struck back-to-back fours off Khurram Shahzad – who had claimed the cheap wickets of Ben Duckett and Jordan Cox on the second evening – when the bowler erred slightly on length. Lawrence then hit Mohammad Ali for four and six in consecutive balls, the latter an authoritative lofted drive which cleared deep extra cover.

More rain forced tea to be taken a couple of minutes early with Lawrence ticking along encouragingly at 37 not out from 57 balls.

Gus Atkinson was nailed low on the front pad on the third ball after the interval, playing across one which nipped into him from Mohammad Ali.

Lawerence moved to within a stroke of his sixth Test fifty by dropping to one knee to slog-sweep Ali Usman into the stands beyond deep midwicket, and he brought up the milestone pulling Mohammad Ali for a single to deep square leg in the next over.

He shoved his bat handle protectively up his shirt while striding off the field for yet another rain stoppage, just two-and-a-half overs after the previous one.

But, if it had caught a few raindrops, there was ample time for them to dry – an entire night in fact. Play was abandoned just after 6.30pm with the official reason given as bad light although there was the potential for almost an hour of play still available and, bizarrely, sunlight bursting through on the horizon.

It had been a timely knock for Lawrence, recalled to the Test squad for this series after an absence of two years, following his consistently strong form with the bat in this year’s County Championship and the international retirement of Ben Stokes, which opened up an allrounder’s spot at No.6 where England could call on Lawrence’s offspin.

Before England’s innings victory in the first match against Pakistan at Headingley, where Lawrence also scored a half-century, he had played his previous Test as an opener in the home series against Sri Lanka in September 2024.