Pakistan v England: first men’s cricket Test, day four

Key events

104th over: England 513-3 (Root 192, Brook 145) Pakistan’s main spinner Abrar Ahmed is off the field with a fever, which makes life even more difficult. Naseem beats Brook with a good delivery that kicks up to hit the keeper Rizwan on the neck. There might just be a hint of reverse swing.

Oh my dizzy days. Babar has dropped Root, a simple chance at midwicket. Root slugged a pull straight to Babar, who didn’t have to move but couldn’t hold on. You cannot do that Babar Azam, not on this pitch, not when it’s Joe Root.

Naseem goes down on his haunches, then waves his arms around in frustration when Root drives the next ball beautifully to the cover boundary. He’s eight away from his sixth double hundred in Tests.

104th over: England 506-3 (Root 186, Brook 144) Root clips Shaheen majestically for four, placed perfectly between short midwicket and mid-on. As Ian Ward said on commentary when he hit his 34th century in the summer, “How on earth does he make batting look so simple?”

The pitch is still doing nothing, and while it wouldn’t surprise me if England declare just before lunch, I do think the best tactic is to bat on and on and let this recent defeat to Bangladesh swirl round Pakistan’s subconscious.

103rd over: England 500-3 (Root 180, Brook 144) Stiff or not, Root is able to scamper back for two after pushing Naseem Shah behind square on the off side. That’s another feature of this innings: only 48 of his runs have come in boundaries. He also hit 12 fours in his 88 against Pakistan in 2015-16. Like his beloved Graham Thorpe, Root can skin a bowling attack any way you like.

Brook also did a lot of running yesterday, more than usual, and he and Root scamper six in that over. A no-ball makes it seven in total, which brings up the 500. It’s not quite Brisbane 2010 but a scoreboard that reads England 500-3 will never fail to warm the heart.

“Morning Rob,” says Brian Withington. “I was just checking the numbers for that era defining first Test in Pakistan in 2022, and they are still simply mind boggling. Sustained scoring rates at over 6.5 (first innings) and over 7 in the second. It’s making the current iteration of England look positively sedate.

“What I’d forgotten was that the second and third Tests were relatively low scoring affairs – and of course, that England took all 60 wickets throughout the tour, which was almost as much of an achievement as the batting.”

It almost makes less sense with each passing day. And because the tour was such a triumph, the first 3-0 win in Pakistan, we forget how close the first two games were. It could easily have been 1-0 to Pakistan after two Tests. That makes the achievement even more special, both in the moment and historically.

102nd over: England 493-3 (Root 176, Brook 142) Shaheen starts around the wicket to Brook, who waves his first ball to deep backward point for a single. If he gets in again he’ll be eyeing a new Test-best score, 0same as Root. Theit targets are 186 and 254 respectively.

Root, who must be stiff as a board after being on the field for all bar eight balls of the game, is beaten on the inside by a very good delivery that just misses the off stump.

Shaheen Shah Afridi has the ball in his hand. Shall we?

England have used the heavy roller this morning ~~and I’m boring myself~~ in the hope it will expand the cracks on this pitch. The problem, as Nasser Hussain says on Sky, is that so far the ball has done almost nothing off those cracks.

Simon Burnton’s day three report

Earlier this year Joe Root mocked Harry Brook for referring to him as “grandad” but it almost seemed appropriate as he hauled himself up to the dressing room at tea, 119 runs and 187 balls into his innings, using his bat as a makeshift walking stick while his fellow Yorkshireman disappeared ahead of him, vaulting the steps two at a time.

Read Ali Martin on Joe Root, the scamp who grew up to be a genius

It may be that, as well as cricket’s paywalled existence in the UK, this lack of ego and self-promotion has stopped Root fully transcending the sport. There was a time when the man of the series in a home Ashes win would have booked a spot on the shortlist for BBC Sports Personality of the Year.

But in 2015, when Root achieved that feat, he did not make the cut. Root is not lacking in personality – far from it, he is a beauty – but somehow this understated excellence in his chosen field has never quite gone fully mainstream, unlike Andrew Flintoff in 2005 or Ben Stokes in 2019. This being a more low-key year for England’s Test side, the trend will probably continue (Spoty has long since lost its lustre anyway). But there is little doubt we are watching greatness right now.

Preamble

Morning. When Ben Stokes became England captain in 2022, he was asked whether he might, like Nasser Hussain at the turn of the century, stabilise a desperate team by first making them hard to beat. “Nah,” Stokes smiled. “I don’t think there’ll be too many draws.”

He’s been as good as his word. In the Bazball era England have drawn only one of their 29 Tests, and that was because of two days of miserable, biblical rain in Manchester during the 2023 Ashes.

The next few hours will tell us whether England detest draws or merely dislike them. In their position, the usual approach to would be for at least three hours and go well past Pakistan’s first-innings total, but that would increase the chances of the dreaded D-word. An early declaration would make a positive result a bit more likely – but it might also expose England to another D-word, defeat.

It feels weird to talk about a team – an England cricket team – that would genuinely prefer to lose than draw. But that was unquestionably the case at Trent Bridge in 2022, albeit in slightly different circumstances, so it will be fascinating to see how England play this.

They will resume on 492 for 3, a deficit of 64, after a day of plenty for their batters. Ben Duckett defied a busted thumb to make the breeziest of 84s before Joe Root and Harry Brook gave a masterclass in the business of run-scoring.

Root became England’s highest Test run-scorer en route to 176 not out; Brook went up and down the gears like a veteran and still managed to score 141 not out from only 173 balls. There should be loads more runs out there today, if England want them.