Ben’s fearless entertainers

Daring declaration sets up bid for result at all costs

Let no one say england aren’ t trying to entertain. On a pitch that has demanded a draw from the start, Ben Stokes and his merry men have spent this remarkable first test trying to prove it wrong. Win, lose or — God forbid — draw, they are doing cricket a great service.

the headline numbers after four days in Rawalpindi are that Pakistan, set 343 by Stokes’s bold tea-time declaration, had reached 80 for two, with Babar Azam, their batting kingpin, out cheaply and Azhar Ali retired hurt. they felt very much in the game.

But the real story was the mindset that has kept this match alive. Nine months ago at this venue, Pakistan and Australia

settled for a tedious draw, grinding out 1,187 runs for the loss of just 14 wickets.

thanks largely to england’s enterprise, the corresponding figures here are 1,580 and 29 — and that is with a day to go.

Yesterday, the originality and fearlessness of life under Stokes and Brendon McCullum was summed up by one entertaining vignette after another.

As england racked up 264 inside 36 overs, which would have been good going in a one-day international, there was the sight of Joe Root taking guard for two balls as a left-hander in an attempt to deal with leg-breaks pitched outside his leg stump by Zahid Mahmood.

that he was almost caught at cover point — or was that square leg? — off the second of them troubled him not a jot. Both Root and Zak Crawley, playing with the freedom of a man who knows his dressing room rates him, raced to watchable half-centuries. Yet they were merely the appetiser for another feast from Harry Brook.

Not content with his indecently fast first-innings 153, when he hit 24 in one over and 27 in another, he started with a slog-sweep for six, before showing off the full repertoire that later prompted assistant coach Paul Collingwood to describe him as a ‘powerful Joe Root’.

For the second time in the match, Brook had Gilbert Jessop’s 120-year- old england record for the fastest test century, from 76 balls, in his sights, only to fall in the last over before tea for 87 off 65 when he missed a heave at Naseem Shah.

At this rate, Jessop — who must have turned in his grave more over the past few months than he had in the previous century — will soon be knocked off his perch. And Brook is as likely as anyone to replace him.

All told, he has scored 240 runs in this test from just 181 balls, an absurd rate of progress, not least for a player in only his second test. england’s run-rate across the game has been 6.73 an over. Only South Africa have done better and that was from one innings against a weak Zimbabwe. At the moment, Brook is the standard bearer for england’s new approach, to the extent that a third-ball duck for Stokes, skying to cover as he aimed something big, passed almost unnoticed. When Brook’s dismissal triggered both the tea break and, moments later, the declaration, some on social media wondered whether england’s think tank had taken leave of their senses. On the contrary — they were being true to their word. Stokes has said all along he has no interest in draws. He is prepared to lose in order to win. It is a philosophy Shane Warne spent a career espousing. He would have loved it.

For their next trick, england threw out decades of new-ball orthodoxy, relegating Jimmy Anderson to first change while Stokes and Ollie Robinson sent down bouncer after bouncer to a field without a single slip.

One theory was that they were trying to rough up the ball and hasten the moment at which it might start to reverse. Another was that bowling a fuller length to opening batsmen in this game had resulted only in two double-century stands.

It seemed borderline certifiable, yet at first it worked a treat. Abdullah Shafique top- edged Robinson to Brook at deep

backward square, before Robinson cracked Azhar on his right index finger two balls later, forcing him to retire hurt.

Out walked Babar to a rousing reception from another healthy crowd. soon, he too was on his way back, unable to evade a short one from stokes as he fended through to Ollie Pope. Pakistan were 25 for two and England were cock-a-hoop.

imam-ul-haq and saud shakeel hit back against the spinners, though England might have had a third wicket shortly before the close when shakeel clipped Jack Leach straight to sub fielder Keaton Jennings at short leg. The chance popped out as quickly as it had come in, leaving hands on heads as the sun began to set.

The excitement meant the early portion of the day, when Will Jacks took Pakistan’s last three firstinnings wickets to finish with six for 161, career-best figures in any format, was largely forgotten.

England, of course, have left themselves in danger of making history of the wrong kind. Until now, the record first-innings score made by a team who went on to lose a first-class match was 642 by Essex against Glamorgan in 2004.

But the England of stokes and McCullum have little interest in history or convention. All they are fussed about is making a game of it, in itself an old-fashioned notion.

This Rawalpindi surface scarcely deserves a positive result, but it will be thanks to England if it gets one.