He is also the best bat of the lot, including Atkinson, which helps balance the team and allows them to think about life after Woakes overseas.

‘Mental disintegration’

Nevertheless, some of Pakistan’s batting was horrible. Shafique played down the wrong line to the first ball of the innings, which perhaps stayed a bit low. Having been given two lives, Shan Masood simply plopped to midwicket. Worst was Saim Ayub’s hoick at Carse’s first ball.

It was scrambled batting that betrayed Pakistan’s poor recent third-innings record this year – they had been dismissed for 115, 146 and 172 in the third innings, losing all three – but also the wounds England had inflicted with their batting. 

Conceding the fourth-highest Test score is demoralising, especially when it happens in unforgiving heat, at 5.5 runs per over, and involves six of your bowlers conceding more than 100 runs, and a couple of simple catches going down.

“You have to play on the fact that they have been out there for a long period of time, the sort of mental disintegration you can sometimes go through,” said Root, a man who has been on the end of a few thumpings in his time. 

“You know what that feels like when you’re waiting to bat, and it feels so flat and then you see one scoot a bit low first ball of the innings and it feels like a very different pitch and a very different game. You have to play on that as a bowling group. Hit the right areas and you can wreak some havoc.”

England certainly did.

Pope and the pitch

England, perhaps by bowling a better, slightly shorter length, just got the ball to do that little bit more than it had in the early part of the match, as the pitch started to disintegrate a touch.

Credit, too, to Ollie Pope, who has endured a brutal game as skipper – not least for making a two-ball duck in a total of 823 – but remained chipper and marshalled his troops with imagination. 

His declaration before tea ensured the game did not drift and Pakistan’s batsmen had to start twice. His bowling changes were smart, with Woakes, Carse and Jack Leach all striking within two balls. And he placed his fielders well, mainly in front of the bat creating seven chances.

Speaking of which, it could have been even better…

It would be easy to assume that this was a perfect session-and-a-bit for England. It was not far off, but three dropped catches of varying degrees of difficulty blotted the copybook. 

There were outstanding takes for the injured Ben Duckett running at mid-off to get Ayub and Jamie Smith to get Said Shakeel off Leach, but the misses denied them a genuine shot at victory in four days.