England batters created three records in Day 1 of the Test against Pakistan with their Bazball approach in the game. Ben Stokes and Co. led the tea, to score 506 runs and created history by becoming the first team to cross 500 runs on the first day of a Test match.
England is playing a Test game on Pakistan’s soil after 17 years. With surpassing 500 runs, England broke the 112-year record as the previous best opening score was 494/6 in 99 overs in1910 by the Australian team against South Africa.
It’s interesting to note that, this Test match saw four batters smashing four centuries on the very first day of the game. Ben Duckett, Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope and Harry Brook crossed the ton mark.
England began its new journey in Test cricket under coach Brendon McCullum and skipper Ben Stokes this summer. Both are considered to be pioneers of the aggressive and high-risk reward style in batting that earned them rewards against New Zealand and India. The term “bazball” has been coined since then. It achieved new heights as the England batters have been indomitable which left Babar Azam and the Pakistani bowlers helpless.
After 57 T20Is and 15 ODIs, Haris Rauf, who made his Test debut, entered the game in the eighth over. However, Crawley continued to find the boundary in Rauf’s second over with back-to-back fours on each side of the pitch, and after 10 overs, the visitors had sped to 63 for zero.
Pakistan definitely missed their star bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi. Along with Haris, the game saw three new debutants, right-arm seamer Ali, legspinner Zahid and middle-order batter Shakeel.
“They (England) had added so much time and hopefully put on an imposing target. Anderson will be fascinating to watch on this pitch, and he will allow stokes to set an imaginative field. Pakistan isn’t going to score at the same rate as England, that’ll buy England time and create the 20 chances to win the game.”– Jos Buttler said
England still has Jacks and fellow debutant Liam Livingstone for batting and that is surely worrisome for the hosts.
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