How England ripped up the record books in ‘phenomenal’ Test win over Pakistan

England stormed to an unlikely record-breaking victory on the morning of the final day of their opening Test match against Pakistan in Multan.

In the Bazball era, the Multan Test ranks with some of their greatest victories overseas, notably Rawalpindi in 2022 and Hyderabad at the start of this year.

Jack Leach finished with four wickets as the hosts were unable to recover from the 82 for six they slumped to on the fourth day. With Abrar Ahmed absent for Pakistan, England only needed three wickets and took them in the morning session.

England won by an innings and 47 runs, only their second win by an innings in Asia; a feat that was unthinkable when Pakistan closed out the second day having put on 556 in their first innings.

No side in history has ever scored as many runs as Pakistan did over the first two days and then gone on to lose by an innings.

England have won on three occasions when conceding more than 500. Although the only time they were victorious when fielding first and going more than 500 behind was in 1894.

The victory came in large part due to Joe Root and Harry Brook’s record-breaking stand of 454 runs, as England put on a mammoth 823 for seven declared. The total scored by Ollie Pope’s side is the fourth highest ever, and the most by England since the Second World War.

Brook and Root’s stand became England’s highest-ever Test batting partnership. The previous was set by Peter May and Colin Cowdrey in 1957, but theirs took 1,140 deliveries compared to the Yorkshire duo’s 522. It was also only the third time two players have scored more than 250 in the same innings.

Stand-in captain Pope praised his players after the match: “Everyone knows what a special win that was. It’s been a serious effort.

open image in gallery

“Whenever you get 550, whatever pitch it is, it’s always a good score, but we also knew if we batted like we know we can then we can go big.

“We’ve got two greedy Yorkshiremen and they did exactly that. What they did was seriously special and a joy to watch.

“It’s been phenomenal. You take confidence from those previous performances when you’re that far behind in the game but the main thing for us in that changing room is that we try not to think about the end result too much during the game.

“Especially if we’re behind we know if we can rock up, give absolutely 100 per cent, chase the ball as hard as we can in the field and do those small things, then the bigger things will look after themselves.

“That’s what has allowed us to go and put together these performances and good wins in situations where, in the past, we potentially wouldn’t have got over the line.”

Root became the first England player to record 20,000 international runs across all formats, and only the 13th player in total. On day three Root overtook Alastair Cook to become England’s highest-ever run scorer and fifth overall.

Brook became England’s first player to score a triple century in 34 years and his total of 317 is the fifth highest Test score by an Englishman.

With reporting from PA