It should have petered out into a dull draw.
A run fest where bat left ball battered, bruised and defeated.
In the end it finished as one of the best Test matches in recent memory. A result secured with just 10 minutes left in the day when England spinner Jack Leach trapped Pakistan’s Naseem Shah in front to secure a 74-run win under stadium floodlights as daylight faded in Rawalpindi.
The victory — giving England a 1-0 lead in the three-Test series — embellished their newly adopted “Bazball” cricket, an aggressive style taken from the nickname of head coach Brendon McCullum.
Skipper Ben Stokes was also active throughout the day, keeping unrelenting pressure on the Pakistan batters with close-set fields and intelligent bowling changes.
He hailed the win as “special”.
“I think it’s maybe up there with one of England’s greatest away wins,” said Stokes.
“We’ve done something very special this week.”
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It is England’s seventh win in eight Tests under the new management of McCullum and Stokes, installed in May this year.
Former England captain Michael Vaughan said he had never seen a better captaincy performance.
“We have just witnessed a captaincy masterclass,” he wrote in The Telegraph.
“Honestly, I cannot remember a better tactical performance by an England captain than the one Ben Stokes produced in Rawalpindi this week.
Vaughan praised the bravery showed by Stokes when he declared to set Pakistan 343 for victory, a modest total on a pitch that produced the most runs in Test history.
But what it did was keep Pakistan interested and therefore England in the hunt. Had the chance of victory been out of reach, the home side could have shut up shop and been extremely difficult to dislodge on a pitch offering very little help.
“I was not that surprised by the declaration,” Vaughan wrote. I knew Stokes would do that sort of thing.”
“Would I have done that? No, and I don’t think any other England captain would have either. My style would have been to get the extra 30 runs, which would have dangled a bit of a carrot for Pakistan but left England thinking that the worst-case scenario was a draw.
“Stokes and Brendon McCullum just do not think like that. They don’t want draws, and are sticking to exactly what they promised when Rob Key teamed them up.”
Vaughan Stokes had completely transformed the way England plays the game.
“It is obviously ridiculous to talk about someone being a great captain after just eight Tests. But Stokes is doing things I have never seen before, so is on the way to that status.
“He needs to win the biggest series yet (Ashes) but I have not seen a captain from any country have this sort of effect on the way a team plays its cricket.”
Another former England captain, Nasser Hussain, was equally as effusive in his praise for the red-headed talisman.
“To win a match in these circumstances, you have to work out how to get 20 wickets, to score your runs quickly enough to give yourself time to get those 20 wickets, and the decision making process had to be clinical throughout. It was a masterclass,” he wrote in his column in the Daily Mail.
“Stokes literally had to get every decision right and even by getting every decision right, England won with just 10 minutes to spare.
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“His decisions were precision. If there had been one second of doubt this win would not have happened, and that’s what I really like about Stokes as a captain. He doesn’t doubt himself.”
Hussain said the real test of England’s new ultra-attacking brand of cricket will come against Australia’s world class attack, but that people must show faith in Stokes and the brand of cricket that has captured the attention of the cricketing world.
“Yes, there’ll be times next summer in the Ashes when people will question ‘do we need to be doing things like that?’ If Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood are on top, for example.
“But you have to back Stokes because of what he has achieved already. I don’t think anyone realised how inspirational he was going to be.
“He also has that steeliness about it. I think great leaders have that little bit of fear factor about them. Players will run through a brick wall for him.”
Former England fast bowler Derek Pringle, writing for metro.co.uk, said the victory was validation of ‘Bazball’.
“Forget whether this was one of England’s greatest ever Test wins, which it was, and realise instead that it was the greatest expression yet of Bazball – which is remarkable given the extraordinary results that phenomenon has yielded in its spirited dismantling of Test match orthodoxy,” he wrote.
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“What made this triumph stand prouder is that its conception and execution were more audacious than anything attempted by an England team previously.
“From the galloping scoring-rate; to the attacking bowling and field settings; to the bold declaration which gave Pakistan (who’d made little running in the match) the chance of snatching a win; the intention was to bat for two days and field for three.”
Pringle, however, warned not to expect a one-dimensional England moving forward.
“With seven wins from eight Tests Bazball is proving as successful as it is seductive. Their commitment to the cause is likely to be tested when there is a chance of England qualifying for the World Test Championship (WTC) final.
“Although that cannot happen this cycle, a bigger prize will hove into view. Then, some caginess, even a draw or two, may be required.
“So far Stokes has been unrepentant about compromising the brand but he is a pragmatist, as he has shown when guiding England to various white ball trophies. So while Bazball is here to stay, I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t get tweaked to achieve yet greater glories than this most daring win in Pakistan.
