The third Test match between England and Pakistan will be played at the Oval from Wednesday. England leads the series 2-0 and cannot lose the series from here. However, they will be looking to win the series and they can achieve that by ensuring that the game at the Oval ends in a draw. 
Pakistan, on the other hand, need to do the improbable. After having lost two successive games, and by whopping one-sided margins, they will need to win the games at Oval to stay in the series. A draw in this game will mean that they cannot draw the series level. 
It will not be easy for Pakistan despite the change in the conditions. For one, they will need to heavily rely on winning the toss and batting first. This is because the track at the Oval has the ability to afford turn towards the later part of the Test match and that is where Saeed Ajmal will come into his own. However, to ensure that the game goes till the fifth day, the Pakistanis will need to bat first and bat much better than they have in the series so far.
With Mohammad Yousuf having not played too much in the last five months or so, things look difficult for the side at the top of the innings.
Of course, neither the English bowlers nor their Pakistani counterparts will get any swing from the track through the entire duration of the game. This will warm the Pakistani hearts, who saw what happened in their second innings of the Edgbaston Test match even as the English bowlers failed to pick up the wickets.
The English side goes into the game unchanged, something that may surprise some, given the form of Alastair Cook. However, the selectors seemed to have taken a decision to allow a winning side to continue in the same vein, especially given that the Ashes is only a few months away and the side will not get too many more practice opportunities. Kevin Pietersen is also struggling with his batting, but for the rest of them, this proves to be another opportunity to get a big score going.
Graeme Swann had had a memorable Ashes Test match at Oval in 2009 and he will be looking at performing the same role as Ajmal – that of a strike bowler. One almost gets the sense that this could be a game of the two spinners, and the side that handles the off-spinner better could be the team that wins this match.