Will Jacks finished with three wickets
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)For all the crash, bang, wallop that has become so synonymous with this England team, it was the turn of the brains of ‘Bazball’ to show-off rather than the brawn.
As a team, England resent the term. They believe it oversimplifies something that cannot be defined and is a reductive way of looking at what they are trying, and so far achieving, to do with Test cricket.
But on the other hand, what they are doing is new and no-one has a better word for it. So Bazball lives on. Afterall, everything needs a name.
And against Pakistan it was in action once more, as from ball one, England set their stall of creativity out. An unconventional choice of Joe Root’s offspin was chosen to start the day and it was followed up by an even more unconventional first delivery, as Root ran-up and bowled a bouncer.
“You’ve got to be creative and unpredictable on a pitch like that”, Root said at the close of play. “Make it hard for them and stop them thinking they can just walk down the pitch and smack you back over your head.”
Plans came and went with England operating solely outside the box in their thinking. Legside fields, umbrella fields, loads of men around the bat, no men around the bat. Each England fielder seemingly attempting to complete the task of covering every blade of grass by the end of the day. And it worked.
Three of the seven wickets came directly from a plan coming together. Imam-ul-Haq found Ollie Robinson at a deepish mid-on off the bowling of Jack Leach. When mid-on had been up, Imam had regularly gone over the top. When long-on had been back, he hadn’t. England opted for the goldilocks position of Robinson neither being in, nor out and dangled a carrot for Imam to take him on. He did. And failed.
Later in the day Mohammad Rizwan chipped to Ben Stokes at mid-wicket when James Anderson had only recently decided to come around the wicket and swing the ball back into the right hander as if he was a fast offspinner. Targeting Rizwan’s pads and only giving him one place to hit the ball, he duly did. Stokes threw the ball up in satisfaction as much as celebration.
Even the opening wicket of Abdullah Shafique, seemingly a lucky break as he edged a wide delivery behind, had its origins in a change of plan from England.
“A couple of times we searched and bowled wide as nothing was happening off the straight,” said Will Jacks, who finished with three wickets including that of Shafique and Babar Azam, “and we maybe got a little bit of group from wide, so we changed our plan there and it worked for the first wicket. And then we came back into the stumps later on. It’s about being flexible.”
Jacks went on to joke that whilst at no point was he at a loss to the fields he was bowling to, conversation did flutter around the England team about how much they’d enjoy batting against the fields they were setting. And as to who the brains were behind England’s fields?
“Mostly Ben,” came Jacks’ simple reply.
Spirits, for a team that has spent 136 overs fielding, are remarkably high within the England camp. Each and every player when talking to the media has almost giggled at the size of the task ahead of them in trying to get 20 Pakistan wickets on a wicket that PCB Chairman Ramiz Raja labelled “embarrassing.”
But presented with mutually assured misery in the field, they’ve clubbed together, almost giddy in the face of misfortune. Like being caught in a downpour with your mates. Well, we’re in this together. It’s going to be horrible. So we may as well have a laugh.
“I think that when you’re playing with guys that you know well and that you’re friends with, that always makes it easier,” said Jacks, who received his Test cap from Ollie Pope, with whom he has played at Surrey since he was eight.
“The vibe that Stokes and McCullum have been building and me coming into that it’s a great place to be a part of and it’s something that when you’re in a team that you really want to play for and on days when you’re not tight as a unit they would have finished 500 for two, so it’s a tap on the back for us that we’ve been able to come through that and finish really strongly in the last hour.”
“It was a brilliant day,” concluded Root. “That last session, with all the hard work we put in leading into it, it all came to fruition really.”
“We still have a really good opportunity to win this Test match.”
Late last night, Harry Brook joked with Pakistan 181-0 he hoped Stokes had some plans in his head because they’d be needed if England were to have any chance. Fortunately for Brook and England. Stokes had exactly that.
