A day after he made history as England’s all-time leading Test run-scorer, Joe Root watched Harry Brook upstage him with an innings of 317 before describing his Yorkshire teammate’s efforts as “a masterclass” and adding: “I don’t think it’ll be the last time we see him with a monster score.”
Brook’s score was England’s best since 1990 and their fifth highest of all time, but he said he was unaware of the records he was breaking: “I just wanted to get past my dad’s highest score, 210.” The partnership of 454 between Brook and Root is England’s highest of all time and the highest ever for the fourth wicket, and helped England to the colossal first-innings total of 823 for seven declared, their highest since 1938. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a score like that before,” Brook said. Having scored 556 in their first innings Pakistan were 152 for six at the close, still 115 away from making England bat again.
In six innings across two tours to Pakistan Brook has now scored four centuries and an 87, with an average of 130.83. “I’m very glad he was born in England and not in Pakistan because his record here is just a joke,” Root said. “I think one of the best things is to come back to conditions where you’ve had previous success and double down on that. To see him get another massive score here is awesome, but he’s got such a complete game: he can score all around the wicket, he plays seam well, spin well and high pace well, and that’s a pretty good recipe for scoring runs.
“The one thing he’s always had is great hands through the ball and he has worked really hard on how late he plays it, how much control he has, how solid his defence is. He’s got a really good understanding of how he wants to score his runs and how he’s going to make it very difficult for the opposition. This was just a masterclass in doing that. He’d scored 210 without breaking sweat – well, he’s absolutely knackered but you know what I mean.”
Beyond attempting to prevent what would be a sixth successive defeat, Pakistan’s challenge across the remainder of this series is to work out how to break Brook’s run. “I’ve been thinking about that for probably 12 hours,” said Tim Nielsen, their high performance coach. “He’s just playing so well. He’s got such power, he’s well organised, he puts such pressure back on the opposition bowling. You might need to give us a couple of days to come up with a solution to it.”
With the spinner Abrar Ahmed hospitalised with a fever on Wednesday night and still there at the close of play on Thursday, England may only need to take three more wickets on Friday to seal victory. “We got bashed up a little bit today, there’s no doubt about that,” Nielsen said. “Everyone’s a bit disappointed tonight, but there’s some good, young, enthusiastic cricketers who are just at the infancy of their career, and if they’re learning anything they’re learning that Test cricket is hard. And that’s not a bad lesson to learn, because it doesn’t get easier.”
Root was dismissed for 262 after making further inroads into the gap between him and the four players still above him on the list of all-time Test run-scorers. “The biggest driver for me is how many games can we go on and win now for the rest of my career?” he said. “The exciting thing, the thing that keeps bringing you back and makes you want to turn up to training, is opportunities like tomorrow. I can’t wait to turn up again and hopefully do something really special as a group.”
