When people saw the pitch for the first Test match between Pakistan and England, there was unanimous agreement that a result will be impossible on that track. A pitch flatter than GT Road was served up for the series opener, and every expert anticipated a boring high-scoring draw. However, England had other ideas.
The pitch was considered so bad and so biased towards the batsmen that Pakistan Cricket Board Chairman Ramiz Raja deemed the pitch to be an embarrassment halfway through the Test match.
After winning the toss and opting to bat first, England played a brand of cricket not seen before in Test matches. Starting from their openers, the much-maligned Zak Crawley and the returning Ben Duckett, every England batsman played with a very aggressive mindset. Maintaining a run rate well above 6 runs per over throughout their innings, England put on a mammoth 657 in their first innings.
Four English batsmen scored centuries, apart from the two openers mentioned earlier, wicketkeeper Ollie Pope and youngster Harry Brook also reached three figures, with Brook top scoring with a score of 153. Interestingly, apart from Duckett, all the other centurions scored above run a ball, with Brook again being the best with a strike rate of 131.90.
In response, Pakistan responded well with a huge score of their own putting up 579 on the board. Just like England, both Pakistani openers, Shafique and Imam Ul Haq scored centuries. Captain Babar Azam also added a century to propel the score over 550 and close to the English total.
That is when everyone thought the match is going to end up in a dull drab draw, but England had other ideas. With a lead of 78 in hand, England turned up in T20 mode in their second innings, scoring 264 in less than 36 overs. Without caring for their wickets, the English batsmen launched an all-out assault on Pakistani bowlers, with the youngster Harry Brook again being the standout batsman with a 65-ball-87.
With four sessions still left in the game, England shocked everyone by declaring with a lead of 342, deemed too low by all experts. However, England again proved all experts wrong as they romped home to victory by 74 runs dismissing Pakistan for 268 in their final innings.
Ever since the Kiwi Brendon McCullum has become the coach of England’s Test side, they have played a brand of positive cricket rarely seen in the format. Using this aggressiveness, England pulled off impressive wins against New Zealand and India, however, even by those standards, the batting in this Test match was astounding.
Brendon McCullum inspired a sea change in England’s limited overs cricket by inspiring them with the way his New Zealand side played in the 2015 World Cup, and now as their coach, he is changing England’s Test side as well. Traditional cricketing sense and experts all said that this should have been a dull draw, but England are not playing for that any longer, and Test cricket will be richer thanks to their approach.