The first Test between England and Pakistan will not only be remembered for the visitors’ daring victory, but also for the number of records set.
Fast bowlers Ollie Robinson and James Anderson took four wickets apiece on Monday as England pulled off an exciting 74-run win over Pakistan in the first Test in Rawalpindi.
Anderson took 4-36 and Robinson 4-50 on a placid Rawalpindi Stadium pitch to dismiss Pakistan for 268, with the stadium floodlights glowing as daylight faded.
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Pakistan’s last pair of Naseem Shah (six) and Mohammad Ali (nought) defied England for 35 minutes and 8.5 overs before spinner Jack Leach trapped Naseem leg-before, leaving England players ecstatic.
The win — giving England a 1-0 lead in the three-Test series — embellished England’s newly adopted “Bazball” cricket, an aggressive style taken from the nickname of head coach Brendon McCullum.
Root uses left-hand to have a bat! | 00:41
Here is a summary of the records to fall:
— England plundered 506-4 to set a new record for most runs on the opening day of a Test, beating Australia’s 494-6 against South Africa set in Sydney in 1912.
— England’s score included centuries from Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope and Harry Brook — the first time four batters made centuries on day one of a Test.
— Pakistan’s Imam-ul-Haq and Abdullah Shafique also notched centuries in Pakistan’s reply of 579, making it the only time in 146 years of Test cricket that openers from both teams got into triple figures in the first innings.
— Haq and Shafique put on 225 for the opening stand while Crawley and Duckett made 233 – the first time in Tests that two 200-plus opening partnerships were made in the same match.
— England’s 657 runs in the first innings was their highest ever against Pakistan – and their fifth-highest in total.
— Brook cracked six boundaries in one over to become only the fourth Test batter to achieve the feat, after the West Indian pair of Chris Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan, and Sri Lankan Sanath Jayasuriya. Debutant bowler Saud Shakeel was on the receiving end of Brook’s onslaught.
— England struck 86 fours and nine sixes in their total — 398 runs in boundaries alone — which is the fifth highest by any team in a Test innings and the most ever by England.
— Pakistan leg-spinner Zahid Mahmood earned the dubious record of conceding the most runs in an innings by a debutant. He gave away 235 runs, beating the 222 runs off Sri Lankan Suraj Randiv against India in 2010.
Skipper Ben Stokes, who maintained unrelenting pressure on the Pakistan batters with close-set fields and intelligent bowling changes on the final day, hailed the win as “special”, figuring they had less than 10 minutes to seal victory before bad light would have been called.
“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.”
The win is England’s seventh in eight Tests under the new management of McCullum and Stokes, installed in May this year.
It was achieved after dangling the carrot-like target of 343 runs for Pakistan to win in a possible 130 overs.
506 in 75 overs! Poms OBLITERATE records | 10:53
“We are disappointed as a team,” Pakistan skipper Babar Azam said afterwards.
“At lunch we were confident that we could win, but credit to England on their brilliant effort.”
A total of 1,236 runs were scored by the two teams in their first innings — England 657 and Pakistan 579 — before the visitors set the Test alight by declaring their second innings at 264-7 on Sunday.
England are on their first Test tour of Pakistan since 2005, having declined to visit in the interim years on security grounds.
The second Test is in Multan from December 9 to 13, and the third in Karachi from December 17 to 21.
