Sensational England are reshaping Test cricket

This has been utterly brilliant from England, however this Test match pans out. To be pushing for a win on this surface, one of the flattest i can remember, and to be walking the walk after repeatedly saying they weren’t interested in a draw, is quite superb.

if you can manage to attract interest to a game played in conditions like these, then what Ben stokes and Brendon McCullum are doing for Test cricket is invaluable.

For previous generations of Test cricketers, 650 plays 570 would have meant only one thing: a bore draw. But the rate at which England have scored in both innings means that these old equations go out of the window. Who knows? Maybe Test cricket will be all right after all.

i thought stokes’s declaration was outstanding. England knew they needed time to take 10 wickets on this lifeless Rawalpindi surface, and that meant giving themselves enough overs to do it, and dangling a carrot for the Pakistanis. set too many and they might have settled for a draw from the start.

Then to produce some out-of-thebox thinking with the ball was fantastic. i was on the outfield at tea when Mark Wood was marking out a run-up for Ben stokes, and it was clear the captain was going to be taking the new ball.

England realised that the orthodox approach of pitching the ball up hadn’t worked, so they decided to do things differently.

By contrast, the short stuff has unsettled a few, which can happen on slow pitches, where you have a bit more time to think about your choice of shot rather than react instinctively. You don’t know whether to fend it off or take it on.

Zak Crawley and Ollie Pope got out to the short one in England’s second innings, and both Abdullah shafique and Babar Azam got in a tangle at the start of Pakistan’s chase.

To have the guts to do something different, and to carry on with it even after Pakistan’s openers got a few early boundaries, is just what this team is about.

if anything, the way England bowled with the new ball was as exhilarating as their batting, which we have come to expect under this regime. in fact, i always felt scoring quickly on Pakistani pitches would be easier than taking 20 wickets, because the surfaces are so flat.

But that doesn’t mean that what harry Brook has done isn’t out of the top drawer. Crawley did well again, and Joe Root had a lot of fun, even taking guard as a left-hander at one point — but Brook really is a special talent.

Certain lads, when they hit the ball, just look that bit different. Brook hits it harder, with his long levers and fast hands, and there’s even a hint of Kevin Pietersen’s swagger about the way he works the ball to leg.

he didn’t just come close to bludgeoning a second century in the game — he came close to bludgeoning a second elegant century. You can hear the sound off his bat. There are plenty of reasons to be excited.

if there’s one drawback with the way England are playing, it’s the fact that their bowlers aren’t getting much time to rest between innings. They spent 155 overs in the field when Pakistan batted, then got a break of just 35 overs because England motored along in their second innings.

But this doesn’t feel like the time to quibble. Win, lose or draw today, England are reshaping Test cricket, and that’s something the whole game should celebrate.