Stat Station of 1st Test ENG vs PAK

Pakistan became the first Asian team to resume international cricket, as they performed what would be stereotypical of them - one moment up and one moment down. They started with Shan Masood’s third Test hundred in a row, with a fighting 156, while the only support he got was from Babar Azam and Shadab Khan, who combined to score 114 runs. As Pakistan score 326, then came a routine England top-order collapse followed by the man-of-the-series of WI series, Ben Stokes out for a duck. However, Stokes was the only England middle-order batsman to fail in the Test. Ollie Pope then scored 62 followed by some tail-end resilience, to take England to a somewhat respectable total of 219, which later helped them to win the Test. Pope’s runs were scored in two nearly equal-sized fifty partnerships - while being the major contributor with a slow scoring Joe Root and a minor contributor with Jos Buttler. A lead of 107 meant that Pakistan was in the driver’s seat, only that they suffered a spectacular collapse to get bundled out for 169. England then chasing a realistic target of 277, did not seem to start with their usual collapse until they had a mini-meltdown from 86/1 to 117/5 within ten overs. Then came Chris Woakes who at the start of the season feared that his career was over, and Jos Buttler who was afraid that this would be his last Test. However, they combined to share one of the best lower-order stands to chase a target. Unlike many lower-order partnerships at crucial junctures, this had seen equal contributions from both ends, with Buttler and Woakes scoring 75 and 84* respectively. Yasir Shah picked up 8 wickets in the Test, including the sixth and seventh wicket which were rather too late, as England fetched a 3 wicket win.

Here are some numbers from this thrilling encounter:-

3 - The match started with Shan Masood scoring his third consecutive Test hundred, becoming the sixth Pakistani batsman to do so (table below). Interestingly each of them was against different teams, in different months.

277 - Target England chased down in this Test, which is their 10^th highest overall, 6^th highest at home and 2^nd highest at Old Trafford, Manchester. This is their highest chase against Pakistan by a distance, as the previous highest is just 209 at Lahore in 1961. For Pakistan, it is the fifth-highest target they failed to defend and the highest since 1999. This is the first time Pakistan failed to defend a target above 200 in a Test match since November 2007.

180 - Jos Buttler had a good comeback from a lean patch, scoring 180 runs in his last three innings, with two scores above fifty. This was just after he scored only 199 runs in his last 10 innings, and there was a lot of pressure on him to cement his spot in the team. It can’t get better than a match-winning knock in the fourth innings of a tense chase.

139 - Partnership runs added by Jos Buttler and Chris Woakes. This is the third-highest partnership for the sixth or lower wicket in the fourth innings of a successful chase. This is the highest by England, the highest in England and the second-highest against Pakistan. The previous highest by an England pair or by any pair in England was 118 years ago - by Stanley Jackson and Gilbert Jessop (109 runs). The top-5 partnerships for sixth wicket or lower are tabulated below:-

5 - Total four-wicket hauls (or above) of Yasir Shah on England soil, the most by a Pakistani spinner, and the highest by any Pakistani bowler after Waqar Younis. No other Pakistani spinner has more than two four-wicket hauls in England.

7 - This is the seventh consecutive away match (excluding UAE) that Pakistan lost in Tests, which makes them continue their record streak. The previous highest streak of consecutive away matches Pakistan lost was 5, on two occasions. The first of them was in 2009-10 (against AUS and ENG) and the other streak is in 2016-17 (against NZ and AUS). The current streak of 7 matches starts from the final Test of Pakistan’s last tour of England in 2018, a 0-3 whitewash to South Africa, a 0-2 whitewash to Australia, and the recent Test against England.