Jack Leach puts the finishing touches to England's victory platform laid by Joe Root and Harry Brook
The left-arm spinner snapped up the last three wickets on the final day, with last man Abrar Ahmed unable to bat due to illness, to secure one of the most remarkable results of the ‘Bazball’ era.
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Hide AdThe final winning margin was an innings and 47 runs, an unthinkable proposition when Pakistan ended with 556 runs on day two. No team in history has ever scored as many and gone on to lose without making their opponents bat twice.
Pakistan, shellshocked at conceding a 267-run deficit, lost a cluster of wickets on the fourth evening and were finally rounded up by Leach for 220.
In the long span of Test cricket, this was another truly outlandish outlier to rank alongside England’s barely-believable turnaround against India in Hyderabad at the start of the year.
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Hide AdThe game began with Pakistan piling up the runs over 149 gruelling overs after winning the toss but they found themselves overwhelmed by the scale of English ambition and the might of their batting line-up.
England responded with a mammoth 823-7 before declaring, Harry Brook’s triple century the centre-piece of the fourth largest innings in Test history, and the bowlers did the rest.
Pakistan resumed with minimal hope on the final day and saw Leach come to the fore to mark his first appearance since January in style.
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Hide AdThe left-armer, who has seen his status as first-choice spinner usurped by his Somerset team-mate Shoaib Bashir, played the role of finisher as he took out Salman Agha, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah to finish with 4-30 and match figures of 7-190.
Salman quickly advanced to his half-century by flicking Gus Atkinson off his hips for four. With the pitch showing no obvious sign of last-day deterioration it did not take England long to unlock their bouncer strategy.
That meant a burst from their quickest bowler, Brydon Carse, and he soon hurried up Aamer Jamal with a short ball that reared and smashed him on the side of the helmet. Carse continued bending his back to dig the ball in, rapping Jamal on the glove from round the wicket but seeing it loop over wicketkeeper Jamie Smith.
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Hide AdWoakes lacked the speed to cause the same problems and saw two of his bumpers dispatched to the boundary by Jamal.
The drinks break brought another change of plan, with Leach entering the fray. This time it took just four balls to do the trick, the left-armer shading one just past Salman’s inside edge and winning the lbw verdict.
Carse switched ends and should have had Jamal for a hard-fought 50, Pope making good ground under a high catch only to fumble it. While Pope will take great satisfaction from leading the side in a record-breaking week his own contribution, he also bagged a two-ball duck and struggled to offer an impact in the field.
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Hide AdThe Pakistan tail showed little appetite to delay things, swinging with abandon as Leach picked them off. Afridi blasted a drive back down the ground but saw the bowler leap in front of the umpire to gather a smart diving catch, while Naseem managed one six before charging down the wicket and being stumped by Smith.
It had taken just 96 minutes to close things down and handed England a 1-0 win in the three-match series.