NEWS
Follow UsEngland have taken giant steps towards victory against Pakistan in the first Test in Multan on Thursday (October 10). With England starting Day 4 on 492/3, it was sure they would take the lead. The question was how much and if they could push for a result in the final session by putting Pakistan under pressure with the ball.
England checked all the boxes, starting with Harry Brook and Joe Root extending their fourth-wicket partnership to 454. Both batters notched up their highest individual scores, with Root scoring 262 and Brook becoming the first English batter to score a triple hundred in the 21st century with 317 runs against his name. Consequently, England notched up 823/7 on the board, taking a first-innings lead of 267 runs.
In the final session, Pakistan succumbed under the pressure of their poor second innings record, finishing the day at 152/6. With a full day’s play left, Pakistan have only four wickets in hand and are still 115 runs behind. Pakistan lost five wickets for 129 runs in the final session.
"That last session there, the way that we bowled was fantastic," Root told Sky Sports after the day’s play. "You've obviously got to play on the fact that they've been out there for long periods of time, the mental disintegration that you can sometimes go through when you've been waiting to bat for so long. It feels so flat, and then you see one scoot low first ball of the innings and all of a sudden, it looks like a very different pitch and a very different game."
Pakistan, however, showed signs of mental disintegration much before walking in to bat. Babar Azam dropped a straightforward catch of Root early in the day’s play. Both Root and Brook ended up batting throughout the first session, tightening the noose on Pakistan.
“You get days out today where you're dropped at midwicket in the first half an hour of the game. You've got to make the most of it. It's that mentality that Goochy [Graham Gooch] used to say to us when he was batting coach, 'you've never got enough,’” Root added.
Root credited the England bowlers, who did more than expected, picking six wickets in the 37 overs they had to bowl on Day 4.
"To exploit the little that was there on offer for us, to get ahead of [the game] and get their bowling allrounders out there batting, is a great achievement for us. With another day's wear into the wicket, I'm sure we're going to create some opportunities tomorrow. If we can open the door early, things will hopefully fall in our favour, and we can enjoy what's been a really good week,” he said.
Root also praised his fellow Yorkshiremen Brook with whom he has notched up 960 runs in partnership this year. It is the highest run aggregate for any batting pair in Test cricket this year at present.
"I love playing with Brooky. I've batted a lot together with him at Yorkshire, and seeing him come into this team and fit so seamlessly into Test cricket has been awesome. To get the opportunity to stand there at the other end and watch him go and smack 300 is pretty surreal, really, and to be able to get a big chunk of this score and that partnership myself is pretty cool, too.” he said.
Root added that Brook will pile up more such gargantuan scores in the future. "He's got such a complete game. He can score all around the wicket, he plays seam well, spin well and high pace well, and that's a pretty good recipe for scoring runs. I'm not surprised at all in him going on and doing something special like that, but I don't think it'll be the last time we see him with a monster score by his name,” he elaborated.
Root himself went past his first Test skipper, Sir Alastair Cook’s tally of most runs for England in Tests when he reached 71 in this innings. While the world is anticipating if he will surpass Sachin Tendulkar to become the highest run-scorer in Test cricket overall, Root said milestones do not drive him.
"When I say that, I don't mean it in an arrogant way or anything," he said. "I've just never really been driven by it. I've never really been one to have goals because I just feel like if you miss them, then you've failed.
"The biggest driver for me is how many games can we go on to win now for the rest of my career. How many games can you affect with the bat and contribute towards? There's no better feeling than - especially in these conditions when it's so heavily favoured one way and so flat - to be able to potentially go and win a Test match tomorrow. It's so exciting.
"After that first Pakistan innings, not many people would have given us a shout at going and doing that. I guess the exciting thing, and the thing that keeps bringing you back and makes you want to turn up to training and enjoy trying to find ways of getting better is opportunities like tomorrow. I can't wait to turn up again and hopefully do something really special as a group."
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