England’s Bold Declaration Pays Off in All-Time Great Test

Ben Stokes’ bold declaration on day four set up a thrilling final day, ending in a historic test win for England at Rawalpindi.

In England’s first test match in Pakistan since 2005, Harry Brook starred with the bat as one of four England centurions in just his second test.

After an explosive scoring pair of innings for the visitors and Pakistan also piling on runs in the second innings in the match, a draw looked the likely result. Stokes’ declaration before tea on day four however, set Pakistan up for a chase of 343 in four sessions in a tussle for the first test spoils.

The match look set for a draw with notable knocks from Saud Shakeel (76), Imam Ul-Haq (48) followed up his first innings century, Mohammad Rizwan (46) and Azhar Ali (40) despite a suspected broken finger wasn’t enough to keep England at bay.

Needing just under 100 runs in the final session and England needing five wickets, including a stubborn Ali, all results were possible. When the old ball started reversing, Stokes’ plans worked exceptionally well as they did across all five days and Ollie Robinson and 40-year-old James Anderson starred with eight-for-86 from 46 overs combined in the fourth innings led the way for Jack Leach to take the final wicket of Naseem Shah who kept Pakistan alive for over half an hour before falling LBW for six just before the close of play.

England broke multiple records on the flat Pakistani pitch after winning the toss and batting first. 506-4 in 75 overs read the scorecard after day one. The aforementioned Brook with 153, the second fastest century ever for England (80 balls to reach 100), was joined by centuries from Zac Crawley (122), Ben Duckett (107) and stand-in keeper Ollie Pope (108) supported a first innings score of 657 after being bowled out in day two.

In bizarre, but expected, ‘Bazball’ fashion, the test saw Brook break the record for runs scored in an over by an Englishman twice; 24 on day one was later broken by himself with 27 from an over on day two. Joe Root also faced up to the debutant leg-spinner Zahid Mahmood left-handed who had a test to forget with 319 runs conceded in the match from just 44 overs.

Will Jacks picked up a six-fer on debut bowling part-time off-spin in the absence of Liam Livingstone who picked up a knee-injury in the field leaving him unable to bowl and ruling him out of the remainder of the series. Jacks wasn’t in the original 11 for the match but was brought in late due to Ben Foakes’ sickness which was suffered within the England camp 24 hours before the match began.

Taking their 1-0 lead in the three-match series, England travel to Multan for the second test, starting on Friday 9th December.