The English men secured 47 and an innings win in the first test of the Pakistan tour of England 2024 after an impressive spell from Jack Leach in the host’s second innings.
He picked three wickets in Pakistan’s second innings which helped the side secure a win at Multan. Previously, Harry Brook smashed a triple century following Joe Root’s double century which helped the visitors to post a total of 823 runs.
Pakistan tried to draw the match by continuing the innings but they fell to England bowlers and bowled out for 220 runs in the second innings.
Magic in Multan! 🙌
A famous, famous win! 🦁
Match Centre: https://t.co/M5mJLlHALN
🇵🇰 #PAKvENG 🏴 | #EnglandCricket pic.twitter.com/lKM6NWzH2A
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) October 11, 2024
This is also the first time in the history of Test cricket that a team lost by an innings after scoring 500-plus runs.
Salman and Jamal added 109 runs for the seventh wicket and frustrated the English bowlers on day five. Jack Leach ended the struggle trapping Salman in front of his stumps for 63 runs. Shaheen Afridi and Naseem Shah lost their wickets to Leach.
Harry Brook was named as the Player of the match. While speaking in the post-match conference, Brook said he “enjoyed it a lot. It was tough out there in the heat. We were just batting for as long as possible to be honest.”
“We had a chat at lunchtime and knew we were going to be batting out there for a little period after lunch. Just have to try and enjoy batting, and build a partnership, and keep trying to rotate strike – put the bowlers under pressure.”
“Was taking as much fluid onboard as possible. And the energy gels, and eating as well. It was tough but that was a good surface to cash in on. Hopefully, many more to come.”
“The only time that the pitch offered something was when the ball was hard and new, and they made the most of that phase, reducing Pakistan to 82/6 as the likes of Carse and Atkinson extracted a bit of variable movement from the cracks.”
“Pakistan would be kicking themselves for some of the shots they played yesterday. If only they had made a better fist of it in the first 20-25 overs, the draw would still have been there for the taking,” concluded Harry Brook. Pakistan has moved to the bottom while England secured 4th position in the WTC points table.
The second match of the England-Pakistan Test series will begin on October 15 at Multan Cricket Stadium.
