After a historic day of batting records in Multan, Joe Root said that the motivation behind his England-record fourth-wicket stand of 454 with Harry Brook had been to drive their team into a winning position on another unforgiving Pakistan deck. And by the close of the fourth day, that goal was almost close enough to touch, as their opponents crumbled to 152 for 6 in their second innings, still needing 115 more runs to avoid an innings defeat.
Regardless of the final result, it has already been an extraordinary turnaround from England, who were made to toil in the Multan heat and dust for 149 overs across the first two days of the match, as Pakistan racked up an imposing 556, with Shan Masood’s 151 the most imposing of his side’s three centuries.
In reply, however, England batted for just one over longer, but by the time Ollie Pope declared at the end of the 150th over, they had amassed 267 more runs – their eventual 823 for 7 being the fourth-highest total in all of Test history. By batting once and going huge, England had bought themselves enough time to turn the screw across a possible 127 overs in Pakistan’s second innings, and as soon as Chris Woakes bowled Abdullah Shafique with the first ball of their reply, the full impact of that time in the field was brought to bear on the hosts.
“That last session there, the way that we bowled was fantastic,” Root told Sky Sports at the close of 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.”
After Woakes’ early incision, Gus Atkinson struck twice to dislodge the key pair of Masood and Babar Azam, whose desperate form now extends to 18 innings without a half-century, before Brydon Carse continued his quietly impressive Test debut with two more breakthroughs, including a hard length to bowl the dangerous Mohammad Rizwan for 10. Jack Leach then capped a superb evening session for England by extracting a fluent Saud Shakeel for 29.
“It’d be a hell of an achievement [to win this Test],” Root added. “We worked really hard to get into this position and, tonight, I thought that was equally as phenomenal as the way that we played with the bat.
“You’ve got to try and play on that and understand that, as a bowling group, if you hit the right areas and you create those opportunities, then you could really cause some havoc. And for us to be here now six-down is brilliant going into the last day.
“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.”
The manner of England’s batting hardly needed vindication, but Root in particular has played in enough Tests in the subcontinent – including a not-dissimilar contest against India in Chennai in 2016, when Karun Nair’s triple-century made England’s first-innings 477 look inadequate – to know quite how quickly teams can crumble when the pressure is unrelenting.
“When you’ve got that position of strength in these conditions, you know things can happen quickly, late on in the game. But you’ve got to really work hard to earn the right to do that, and to have that chance of winning. So it’s all about trying to get to that position where you can put your foot down and dictate terms a little bit.”
As a consequence, Root and Brook were able to resume at the start of day four knowing that they not only had licence to turn their then-imposing stand of 243 into something truly historic, but that the higher and harder they went, the better their team’s match situation would be.
“It was all about getting a position where we can have a real shot at trying to do something special,” Root said. “It was challenging, obviously it was very hot and quite tiring, but that’s part of the fun of it. When you’re sore and tired, you just remember what it feels like being on the other end of it, fielding out there. You know that things are in your favour, so you just got to try and make the most of it.”
Though he eventually fell for a career-best 262, Root did have one huge life on 186, when Babar spilled a sitter at midwicket. It wasn’t a moment he was about to dwell on, however.
“You know what it’s like in this game,” he added. “There are periods where you’re really struggling, and every little mistake [gets you out], and all of a sudden you’re not in good nick. And 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’.”
Brook, whose career-best 317 was just the sixth triple-hundred in England’s Test history, and the first since Gooch’s 333 in 1990, said that Root’s presence and stature at the other end of the pitch had kept him hungry for more throughout their huge stand.
“He’s obviously one of the best players, and England’s greatest-ever batter,” Brook told Sky Sports. “What comforts you the most when you’re out there is watching how easy makes it look, and how hard it is for the bowlers to get him out. He’s playing the ball so late, you bowl your best ball, and he’s scoring runs off it.
“It feels pretty good,” he said of his record knock. “We had a lot of fun out there. we didn’t say much to each other, but we had a lot of fun. It was hot and it was hard work, but we enjoyed it. I’m just glad that the team’s in a strong position now to win the game tomorrow.”
Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket
