England’s 74-run win over Pakistan has roundly been heralded as one of the great Test wins. Not just for England, but in the sport full stop.
A record-breaking first innings saw England score 657 at more than a run a ball before they added 264-7 declared in their second innings in just 36 overs that gave them enough time - just - to take all ten Pakistan wickets required for victory. The last of Pakistan’s wickets fell with little more than ten minutes of the fifth and final day remaining.
But while England’s batters set up victory, it was the workhorses with the ball who delivered it, as Ollie Robinson and James Anderson took four wickets apiece in a heroic final-day performance.
“We knew that from the morning when we started bowling that it was going to be a day for the seamers,” said Ollie Robinson, reflecting in the warm glow of victory and three tubes of Deep Heat.
“We felt like the dew in the morning actually helped us a bit, the ball kissed through for a little bit and then the ball changed after 30 overs and we got it reversing quite quickly.
“And at that point, Stokesy was like ‘we’re gonna have to do all the work here’ and I thought ‘here we go!’”
A seamers’ day, on a day-five pitch in the sub-continent defies conventional cricketing logic, but by now that is par for the course for this England team where left is right and up is down.
So too, that a three-man seam attack consisting of Stokes, whose workload has been managed carefully in recent years, James Anderson, who is 40, and Robinson, whose fitness was publicly questioned by the England coaching staff less than a year ago, was able to shoulder such a workload. Both Anderson and Robinson bowled more than 40 overs across the match in often hot conditions underneath the Pakistani sun.
“The great word you said there was Ollie Robinson’s fitness in the ‘past’,” smiled captain Stokes at the close of play yesterday. “He didn’t show any signs of slowing down on a hot, docile, draining day. He just kept running in and running in.
“Everything that has gone on in the past and that’s been said about him should be written off now. Because that performance this week is in my opinion his best bowling performance for England.”
Robinson’s second-innings figures were 4-50 from 22 overs, while Anderson claimed 4-36 from 24.
Each had their own special moments. Robinson’s delivery to Agha Salman that nipped in and trapped the batter LBW was borderline unplayable, before he claimed the vital wicket of Azhar Ali when Pakistan’s No3 fell into England’s trap and was caught at leg-slip. Likewise Anderson, with the sun fading and England searching desperately for wickets, claimed two in three balls in a double-strike that put England on the edge of victory.
“We knew from quite early on that it was going to be a long day for us,” said Anderson. “But to get a Test win you have to put that effort in.
“We kept each other going. There were times when one of us would flag and then the other one would have to pick him up and just say keep going.”
Anderson, a veteran of 176 Tests, ranked it as one of the best of his career. And while his physical exertion belied his age, his method of celebration did not. A photo posted on Twitter by his podcast Tailenders revealed Anderson celebrated one of England’s finest Test victories with a long, hot bath.
Victory was just reward for an England side that had made plain their willingness to risk a loss in pursuit of a win, something that when Pakistan required 170 to win with seven wickets still in hand seemed eminently plausible if not entirely likely.
In the end, England came out on top. And while the batters are deserving of their headlines, so too are the bowlers. Because as the old saying goes: behind every great batter, is a bowler rolling their arm over.
