How England prised out six wickets on dead track

Across the first 299 overs of this extraordinary Test, 1,379 runs were scored for the fall of 17 wickets. A triple-century and a 262 combined for a Test-record stand, and there were three other centuries.

Bat utterly dominated ball on a pitch so flat that Kevin Pietersen suggested they use it for the second and third Tests, too.

But in 37 overs before stumps on day four, England took six wickets, leaving Pakistan facing the prospect of becoming the first team to score 500 in their first innings and lose by an innings. What changed?

Slick seamers

England’s seamers, all first-timers in Pakistan, improved throughout the first innings and, armed with a new ball as the day began to cool, they were on it from ball one – literally, as Chris Woakes castled Abdullah Shafique for a golden duck.

Woakes was backed up by Gus Atkinson, who nicked off Babar Azam with a beauty, and, perhaps most notably, debutant Brydon Carse.

“That last session there, the way we bowled was fantastic,” said Joe Root. “That was equally as phenomenal as what we did with the bat.”

Carse has had to wait for his Test debut but, despite a modest first-class average of 33, England have liked him for years. They kept the faith through his gambling ban this summer, and he repaid them by immediately looking at home.

After a heavy workload in the first innings, Carse was immediately up above 88mph in the second, and stayed there across two spells, finding good bounce on a dead pitch and hitting the bat very hard.

That Carse has immediately looked so comfortable is a real boon for England, as he joins the battery of quicks they are building for next year’s series against India and Australia.

He is also the best bat of the lot, including Atkinson, which helps balance the team and allows them to think about life after Woakes overseas.

‘Mental disintegration’

Nevertheless, some of Pakistan’s batting was horrible. Shafique played down the wrong line to the first ball of the innings, which perhaps stayed a bit low. Having been given two lives, Shan Masood simply plopped to midwicket. Worst was Saim Ayub’s hoick at Carse’s first ball.

It was scrambled batting that betrayed Pakistan’s poor recent third-innings record this year – they had been dismissed for 115, 146 and 172 in the third innings, losing all three – but also the wounds England had inflicted with their batting.

Conceding the fourth-highest Test score is demoralising, especially when it happens in unforgiving heat, at 5.5 runs per over, and involves six of your bowlers conceding more than 100 runs, and a couple of simple catches going down.

“You have to play on the fact that they have been out there for a long period of time, the sort of mental disintegration you can sometimes go through,” said Root, a man who has been on the end of a few thumpings in his time.

“You know what that feels like when you’re waiting to bat, and it feels so flat and then you see one scoot a bit low first ball of the innings and it feels like a very different pitch and a very different game. You have to play on that as a bowling group. Hit the right areas and you can wreak some havoc.”

England certainly did.

Pope and the pitch

England, perhaps by bowling a better, slightly shorter length, just got the ball to do that little bit more than it had in the early part of the match, as the pitch started to disintegrate a touch.

Credit, too, to Ollie Pope, who has endured a brutal game as skipper – not least for making a two-ball duck in a total of 823 – but remained chipper and marshalled his troops with imagination.

His declaration before tea ensured the game did not drift and Pakistan’s batsmen had to start twice. His bowling changes were smart, with Woakes, Carse and Jack Leach all striking within two balls. And he placed his fielders well, mainly in front of the bat creating seven chances.

Speaking of which, it could have been even better…

It would be easy to assume that this was a perfect session-and-a-bit for England. It was not far off, but three dropped catches of varying degrees of difficulty blotted the copybook.

There were outstanding takes for the injured Ben Duckett running at mid-off to get Ayub and Jamie Smith to get Said Shakeel off Leach, but the misses denied them a genuine shot at victory in four days.

Woakes and Atkinson traded drops of Masood off each other’s bowling before tea. Both were tough, running efforts above the head, but Woakes – an outstanding fielder – looked disappointed.

Then came a bad drop by Shoaib Bashir of Aamer Jamal at long-leg, which denied Carse a third wicket to show for his excellent performance.