Watch cricket video highlights of England tour of Pakistan 2024. First test between Pakistan and England. Venue of the match will be Multan.
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It was always going to take something exceptional from England after spending the better part of two days in the mud to respond to Pakistan’s massive first-innings total of 556. They not only responded forcefully, trailing by only 64 at the close of the third day of this first Test on 492 for 3, but they did so in a way that was historically significant. After surpassing Sir Alastair Cook’s record of 12,473 runs and reaching his 35th Test hundred, Joe Root became as England’s most run scorer in Test cricket.
With his fourth century against Pakistan in as many matches, Root continued where he left off with a Player-of-the-Series effort on the 2022 tour of that country. It was characteristic of him to be quiet and busy with just 12 fours, contrasted against Harry Brook’s exuberant 141* off 173 deliveries. This is actually Root’s first time on these beaches. He was the last England batsman to accomplish that record, against Sri Lanka in Galle three years ago, and it has happened after spending the entire day at the crease.
As a result, he has missed only eight deliveries out of the 250 overs played in this match thus far. It makes sense why he had cramps during the latter portion of the day. After England resumed on Wednesday with 96 for 1, having gone to the crease on Tuesday after stand-in captain Ollie Pope was dismissed with just four wickets made, he will lay down his guard on Thursday morning with his team holding all the cards. After the second and third wickets yielded 109 and 136 runs respectively, thanks to the guts of Ben Duckett’s 84 and Zak Crawley’s 78.
The Yorkshire pair of Root and Brook put together 243 (and counting) to create a third straight century stand in the innings. Root was the anchor throughout, as he has been for the majority of the previous 12 years in English cricket. With 32 at the start of the third day, he made the last push to the top of the England run scorers’ list 15 minutes before lunch. On 67, he leaned into another compact drive for four to go past Cook as the most prolific England Test batsman and move up to 12,473 career runs.
Which puts him fifth overall behind Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Jacques Kallis, and Rahul Dravid. It was inevitable that Root would reach triple digits, particularly on a surface that continues to be a bore, with only two wickets falling during the day and none in the last session. With a reverse sweep off his 167th ball, he reached a clean hundred and his sixth century of 2024. Following 2021 and 2022, it was his third strike in a calendar year. The only players to hit five or more Test hundreds in multiple calendar years were Matthew Hayden (four) and Ricky Ponting (four).
Root found things so simple that he even switched to left-handed batting against legspinner Abrar Ahmed, who was concealing the ball outside leg stump for defensive purposes as much as to slow down play. He took 11 wickets on his Test debut against England at this same stadium two years ago, but now he has dismal numbers of 0 for 174 from 35 overs. The fact that Root only managed one four off Abrar—a full toss that was sent past midwicket off the first ball of the innings’ 92nd over—spoke to the punishment that Crawley, Duckett, and, more recently, Brook inflicted.
It’s true that Crawley and Duckett ought to have received three figures each. However, Crawley dismissed Aamer Jamal at midwicket after flicking apishly over a full-length delivery from Shaheen Shah Afridi during the first hour of play. But Jamal’s second-inning grab wasn’t quite as good as the screamer he’d used to get rid of Pope the previous evening. He nearly dropped the ball as it looped directly towards him, but he managed to catch it on the second try. In any case, Crawley left after earning his sixth score between 60 and 80 for the season.
Duckett, who was unable to start the batting due to a thumb injury, strolled in at No. 4 and continued to bat with abandon. On 37, Naseem Shah got his outside edge, but the ball split the keeper and resulted in a wide first slip, costing him one life. But Duckett was removed for the fourth time between 70 and 90 since his third Test hundred against India in Rajkot back in February, when the ball reversed sufficiently for Jamal to trap the left-hand batsman on the crease from outside the wicket.
However, Brook naturally took over as the aggressor as soon as he arrived, scoring 249 for 3. Brook made his debut to the world on the previous Pakistan tour, amassing 468 runs at 93.60 and scoring hundreds in each of the three Test matches. Two years later, a guided four to third from his second delivery proved he was returning to hurt the hosts even more. Even though there was a chance for reverse swing, first with Jamal and then with Afridi, Brook’s quickness off the bat was unstoppable.
Afridi felt the full impact of that as a short delivery was hammered back down the ground like a tennis forehand for the first of successive boundaries. In 49 deliveries, Brook reached his half-century, his seventh fifty-plus score in six innings against Pakistan. Due to the field’s spread, the bowling lines’ negative length, and Brook’s own struggles with cramps, neither he nor Root could completely commit to attacking strokes that needed extra stretching, which made their following fifty overstaken by 69 balls.
But after downing a lot of gels and isotonic beverages, he hit Abrar for six wickets in the 83rd over, taking his innings total to 98. His sixth career century was brought up by a misfield for two cuts to point. At 75, he could have been headed back when a block from the excellent Jamal, who was unquestionably the best bowler, bounced off his grille and landed on his stumps without causing the bails to come loose. Similarly, Root may have been dismissed on 168 if the umpire After a rare seam movement trapped the batsman in front with the second new ball.
Naseem gave a loud lbw shout, and Kumar Dharmasena lifted his finger. After DRS returned an umpire’s call on the impact onto leg stump, Shan Masood decided to use Pakistan’s previous review to double-check. It summed up a terrible day for Pakistan, who gave up 4.83 an over in the 82 overs they played today, watching helplessly as their first innings performance was made to look inadequate. A significant first innings advantage seems expected with Jamie Smith in the wings and Root and Brook having had a night off.
