It wouldn’t be wrong to state that England assaulted Pakistan rigorously for almost four sessions in the ongoing first Test match at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium.
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While teams barely manage to put on board a competitive first innings total in 101 overs, English batters celebrated their return to Pakistan after 17 years by not breaking but smashing several batting records.
Defending captain Ben Stokes’ decision to bat first even if it was made due a completely different reason, England batters namely Harry Brook (153), Zac Crawley (122), Ollie Pope (108) and Ben Duckett (107) scored individual centuries in a record-breaking effort.
Playing only his second Test, Brook made most of batting-friendly conditions put on offer via a harmless pitch hitting six fours in an over on Day 1 before scoring as many as 27 runs off a Zahid Mahmood over to register one of the most expensive overs in Test cricket on Day 2.
Having bowled a highest number of overs among all Pakistani bowlers in the first innings, debutant spinner Mahmood was the biggest casualty of England’s attacking instincts leaking grand total of 235 runs in 33 overs at an economy rate of 7.12 to experience a devastating Test debut.
The crowning point of the innings was the fact that England scored 657/10 in Asia without any major contributions from Stokes (41) or former captain Joe Root (23).
All in all, English batters collected a combined total of 398 runs via boundaries to grab the fifth position in the list of most runs scored through boundaries in a Test innings. While there have been quite a few separate instances of teams hitting more than England’s 86 fours and nine sixes but accumulating these many runs in the same innings is a feat worthy of laurels.
Most boundaries in a Test innings
Team | Score | 4s | 6s | Runs | Opposition | Venue | Year |
Sri Lanka | 952/6d | 109 | 2 | 448 | India | R Premdasa Stadium | 1997 |
Australia | 735/6d | 83 | 17 | 434 | Zimbabwe | WACA | 2003 |
Pakistan | 643 | 83 | 15 | 422 | New Zealand | Gaddafi Stadium | 2002 |
India | 705/7d | 101 | 1 | 410 | Australia | SCG | 2004 |
England | 657 | 86 | 9 | 398 | Pakistan | Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium | 2022 |