Ben Stokes' free-flowing Bazballers tore up the record books in astonishing style to thrash the most runs ever scored on the first day of a Test match.
An incredible 506-4 was scored by the time Harry Brook and Stokes walked off the ground with FOUR batters each scoring centuries for the three lions on the same day for the first time. When Stokes uppercut the final ball of the day for four, it brought an end to a frankly mind-boggling performance that included 73 boundaries and three sixes from English blades.
And while Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, and Ollie Pope all deserve fulsome praise for their efforts in bringing up three figures, the star of the show was undoubtedly Brook, who came within a whisker of making his maiden Test hundred the fastest ever by an Englishman.
That feat still belongs to Gilbert Jessop’s 76-ball landmark, but just six months after fellow Yorkshireman Jonny Bairstow grabbed one in 77 balls, Brook registered his in just 80 balls of thrilling strokeplay.
Brook has long convinced those within the England squad that he is a generational talent, and here he showed the world just what he is capable of with an innings of clinical quality that developed a brutal streak after the tea break.
No England batter had ever hit all six balls of an over for four, but Brook took all six deliveries from Saud Shakeel and sent them to the rope on both sides of the wicket.
It turbo boosted him towards a hundred that had looked inevitable from the moment he walked to the middle with the scoreboard already reading 286-3, with the only batter in the top five to miss out on a ton, Joe Root, swapping places with him.
If normal rules applied, England’s Test team should have been in for a tricky opening day, their first in the country for 17 years. Thanks to a virus that had swept through their squad, they had only just been given the green light to play the game two and a half hours earlier once it was clear that they could put out a strong enough side to play the game.
It still prevented wicket-keeper Ben Foakes from playing, meaning that Will Jacks got to make his debut alongside Liam Livingstone. But any traces of discomfort or nerves or uncertainty surrounding the team, vanished in a flash as Crawley took Naseem Shah for 14 runs from the very first over of the game to set out their stall and things hardly slowed down from there.
Both openers are naturally positive ball strikers and with the freedom to express themselves they took it with both hands, pouncing on anything too full, short or wide as Pakistan’s bowlers were given zero assistance from a docile pitch.
With a right and left hand combination and a huge height difference between the two openers, the Pakistan bowlers failed to find any rhythm and the England duo cashed in with strong authentic cricket shots.
They racked up 40-0 from the first six overs and 141-0 from 20, more than Pakistan had managed in the T20 World Cup final just a couple of weeks ago. By lunch they had scored 174-0, the most runs ever scored by an England pair in the opening session of a Test match.
Crawley had even flirted with becoming the first England batter to score a hundred before lunch, but nine runs short, he had to wait another five balls, and survive an lbw decision on review, to get there.
Duckett took a little longer to register his maiden Test hundred, coming from 105 balls, but it was no less special for the Notts man who had waited six years for another crack at Test cricket.
Pope will be England’s keeper in this game due to Foakes’ illness, but he is a premier No.3 and his third Test hundred was another sign of how accomplished he has become. Busy and effective now, rather than skittish.
