All bets off as Yorkshire CCC star Harry Brook joins the immortals - Chris Waters
“I think Harry Brook has scored enough,” he messaged, with Brook on 141 and Root 176 heading into day four against Pakistan in Multan.
“I win £20 if Root is top scorer.”
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Hide AdOne has not yet had the heart to reply in gloating terms but for creative purposes it felt too good to waste.
One wondered how many others were similarly foiled when Root’s 262 was eclipsed by one of the most extraordinary innings in the history of the game, Brook striking 317 - the fifth-highest score for England in Tests - to consign my friend and others to surely one of the unluckiest bets in the annals of gambling.
Only once, in fact, has a batsman who scored as many as 262 in a Test innings not finished top scorer - Kumar Sangakkara’s 287 overhauled by Mahela Jayawardene’s 374 for Sri Lanka against South Africa at Colombo in 2006; as someone once said, it’s a mug’s game, tha knows.
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Hide AdIf day three of this match was all about Root, who broke Sir Alastair Cook’s record for the most runs by an Englishman in Tests, then the spotlight shifted thrillingly on to his Yorkshire partner, whose overnight 141 had been almost a footnote.
Now the stage was Brook’s as he became only the sixth Englishman after, in chronological sequence, Andy Sandham, Wally Hammond, Len Hutton, John Edrich and Gooch to score a triple hundred in Tests, with perhaps only weariness preventing him from beating Hutton’s English record of 364 against Australia at the Oval in 1938, the torch not passing from Pudsey to Burley-in-Wharfedale – at least not yet.
It would be impossible, in fact, to do justice to all the records broken during the course not only of Brook and Root’s innings but England’s in general.
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Hide AdMost significantly, the Yorkshire pair set a new mark for the highest stand for England in Tests, their 454 outshining the 411 made by Peter May and Colin Cowdrey against West Indies at Edgbaston in 1957.
That was the first game broadcast ball-by-ball on Test Match Special, the Radio Times of that week carrying the slogan: “Don’t miss a ball, we broadcast them all.”
May hit 285 not out and Cowdrey 154 as two team-mates and future TMS stalwarts, Trevor Bailey and Fred Trueman, looked on.
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Hide AdSixty-seven years later, it was fitting that the two best English batsmen of the modern era should take the palm on a day when England’s 823-7 declared was their third-highest total, and the fourth-highest made by any team in Tests, as the tourists took a first innings lead of 267, batting only one more over than Pakistan had done for their 556.
Of course, a case could be made for proclaiming Root the finest English batsman ever, and for predicting that Brook could eventually surpass him in that respect, too.
Such comparisons, of course, will always be futile; one might as well compare the sun with the moon. Suffice to say that when Root was lbw playing back to a non-turning ball, they had shared in something truly special, one which ensured that this day of Test cricket will live long in the memory.
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Hide AdIf Brook did have records on his mind - and he has never struck one as that sort of chap - it would no doubt have been the 210 made by his father for Burley against Woodhouse, previously the highest score in the Brook family.
Brook junior, whose previous best in Test cricket was 186, and for Yorkshire 194, left his old man for dead in the melting heat of Multan, before top-edging a sweep to Shan Masood - who else? - as the Yorkshire and Pakistan captain held an easy catch.
As Brook walked off, Masood sportingly patted him on the back and the impish thought arose that it would have been the perfect cover for Masood to have simultaneously inserted a crafty dagger, given that there are two more Tests to play and, no doubt, further punishment to be had for the Pakistanis.
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Hide AdInstead, after England “collapsed” from 779-4 to 799-7 before the declaration, the only daggers inserted were into the home side’s second innings as they slumped to 82-6.
Chris Woakes uprooted the off stump of first innings centurion Abdullah Shafique first ball, the batsman’s brain no doubt frazzled by hours in the field, and there were two wickets for pace men Gus Atkinson and Brydon Carse, plus one for Jack Leach, before a stand of 70 between Salman Ali Agha, another first innings centurion, and Aamer Jamal averted a four-day defeat.
They closed on 152-6, still 115 shy of making England bat again and a man down too, spinner Abrar Ahmed having spent the day in hospital with a virus – no doubt RootandBrook-itis.
If there was at least one safe bet, it was surely that England would go on to complete one of their most astonishing wins after the brilliant Brook left disbelieving punters tearing up their slips.
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