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Will Jacks continues quiet rise to help give England window of opportunity
Novice offspinner showcases good fundamentals as well as a knack for taking wickets
Babar Azam walked slowly off the ground in Rawalpindi on day three, a fifth century in Pakistan in his back pocket, receiving every bit of deserved acclaim from the 15,000 strong crowd. A flat pitch is still only just a stage, and after England's punk rock effort in the first innings, Babar's turn was so classic he may as well have had a violin in his hands.
The departure was spine-tingling but the end itself was pretty, well, basic. Off balance, snatching at the ball and a duff connection straight into the hands of Jack Leach at point. Pakistan were now five down, England still 184 ahead, and Will Jacks had dismissed one of the best batters of this generation on a whim.
"A bit of disbelief really," responded Jacks when asked his feelings about the stature of the man he had just removed with his offspin. "It was the first ball of my spell, probably a bit of a loosener outside off and he cut it to point.
"He's obviously a very high-quality player, playing in his dream conditions really, so I can't complain about that one and I'm very happy."
Jacks' three wickets so far won't make a particularly impressive reel. His maiden scalp broke the opening partnership on 225 - Abdullah Shafique botching a cut himself to present an edge to Ollie Pope behind the stumps - and the third relied on Naseem Shah's tempestuousness, and a seriously good running catch from Leach out at deep midwicket this time. But among his 33 overs, particularly the 21 sent down for figures 3 for 82 on Saturday, the resolve shown by Jacks belies the fact that those dismissals, his place in the team, heck, even the fact he is bowling spin at all were more through accident than design.
Perhaps "accident" is a little harsh. But were it not for the virus getting to Ben Foakes at the last possible moment, Jacks would have been carrying drinks here. In the end, he was handed his cap two minutes after Ben Stokes told him he was in the XI. And the peculiar silver-lining in that scenario is Stokes would have been up against it without Jacks after losing Liam Livingstone's wrist-and-or-finger-allsorts through a jarred right knee picked up in the field.
Coming into 2022, Jacks had bowled just 86 overs in first class cricket for Surrey since a debut in the format back in June 2018, with an additional six for England Lions, and as many wickets in that time as he managed here. He was utilised more in T20 cricket as someone able to fulfill four overs which, along with opening the batting, allows Surrey greater dexterity with their line-up.
It was in the 2020 Blast when he first showcased there was more to him than just someone who could burgle a few overs here and there, with 4 for 15 in semi-final against Kent. At the start of the last summer, Surrey head coach Gareth Batty, as a fellow offie, wanted to push Jacks into assuming a greater role with the ball for their Championship season. He responded with 17 wickets at 47.00. While not spectacular, it felt something of a breakthrough.
Batty noted the parallels with Moeen Ali, another offspinner who had to be coaxed into taking the pursuit seriously, or at least believing they themselves could be taken seriously while doing it. Jacks' stock spin ball was "beautiful" in Batty's eyes, the issue was changing the mindset of a batter who bowled a bit and get him to be more of a bowler invested in a sole purpose. And to watch Jacks here in the Pindi Stadium, toiling away with that upright action, back stiff before the arms spiral like propellers, was to watch someone slowly believe that not only was he an offspinner, but one who could make a difference. He turned far more than he should have done, and noticeably extracted a bit more bounce than his more seasoned spin partner Leach, on account of a taller action and coming over the top of the ball with his release.
"Bowling is getting more and more enjoyable as I'm getting better at it," he said with refreshing honesty, like a uni student warming to cooking. "I'm incredibly keen to - not perfect because you can never do that - but get as good as I can and play for England as an allrounder."
He was proud to announce this was the second time he has "topped" 30 overs. The previous instance came in May when he bowled exactly than many to earn career-best figures of 4 for 65 in the first innings of a Division One match on a turning Beckenham track against Kent, who were bowled out for 230 after the visitors had posted 671. An innings victory fell flat due to the rain, but Jacks still managed to go through now England team-mate Zak Crawley before it came. Batty maintains Jacks was on a roll, primed to win the game on his own.
Jacks will have to go some to do that here, even if the pitch is starting to show something. But he did help set-off the chain of three wickets for 24 inside 7.4 overs of the evening session.
"Pretty happy - it was almost a game-changing moment," Jacks said. "If we go on to win this Test then I guess that could be seen as a big moment in the game to take that wicket of Babar and then Rizwan the very next over and one more in the last hour.
"It finished up being a great day for us, seven wickets in the day is something very very good, so we'll be looking to get those three wickets as quickly as possible in the morning and then giving them a score to chase."
Jacks is by no means the finished article as a bowler, and it is not too cynical to think he might never be. The batting alone is worthy of commendation, especially against the white ball. That the only other person with a century in the Hundred (Will Smeed) has opted for an exclusively limited-overs path is reflective of the times we're in. And though Jacks probably won't take such a severe option, there will be other interests that perhaps take him away from fine-tuning those tweakers.
But there is definitely plenty to work with, from a lovely action, good go-to delivery and a real game sense, which came through when he opted for wider landing spots having noticed there was more turn out there. Crucially, he has thick skin: unperturbed by some of the unique fields being set, particularly as the day wore on, with short leg, silly point, regulation slip and a leg gully.
A lack of cover goes some way to explaining the run rate, which he did manage to drag down to an even 4.0, though there were a few full tosses in there. His 28th over was ransacked by Mohammad Rizwan, four fours a clear effort from the wicketkeeper-batter to get him out of the attack.
It didn't work. Jacks stayed on, kept plugging away and in turn England have broken into a match and a pitch that looked set to keep them out.
Joe Root, Abdullah Shafique promise to 'fight it out' as slow-burn Test reaches end-game
England, Pakistan commit to going for the win after three tough days for bowlers
England and Pakistan have promised a fight to the finish in the first Test at Rawalpindi, in spite of the turgid nature of the pitch, with both Joe Root and Abdullah Shafique insisting that their teams will be pushing for victory over the final two days of the game.
England reached the close on day three with the edge in terms of scoreboard position, leading by 158 runs with three Pakistan wickets still to claim. And following two tough days in the field, they returned to the pavilion with a sense of satisfaction after an excellent final session, in which they claimed four wickets including the key scalp of Babar Azam for 136.
"It was a brilliant day," Root told Sky Sports. "That last session … all the hard work we were putting into it came to fruition really. It was very attritional. We had to be very creative throughout the day, had to try a number of different things, keep searching for wickets, and we got our rewards on the back end from some real hard work."
A notable feature of England's innings was their determination to post attacking fields throughout, with Stokes ringing the changes to keep the batters on their toes, with up to four men around the bat for the spinners, and close catchers in front of the wicket. And as Root admitted, the hunt for breakthroughs had the dual effect of keeping the team's spirits high in adversity.
"That is the most important thing," Root said. "If you feel like you've got no chance it makes it extremely hard, but the way that we stuck to our task, we tried different things, tried to keep it fun and interesting, and I suppose get them to think a bit outside the box as well, and ask questions of what we were trying to do. To be sat here with them so far behind the game, still gives us a really good opportunity to go and win the Test match."
Nevertheless, Pakistan remain very much in the contest after a fine day's batting, in which Shafique and Imam-ul-Haq both completed their centuries in an opening stand of 225.
"Firstly, congratulations to the team England, they have played wonderfully," Shafique told Sky Sports. "To make 506 [in a single day] is a special total from them. We just kept in mind that we have to play well, because the openers set the tone for the rest of the team. And we set a nice partnership there, which gives our side a good confidence as well.
"It was a good day for the Pakistan side because we have played well," he added. "And yeah, we have lost some wickets here. But we are in a good position. In the first two days, the wicket is good to bat on but the ball is spinning now, so we'll get some favour with the wicket in the third and fourth day, so it will be a good contest."
England's first challenge on day four will be to round up Pakistan's tail cheaply, but Root was in no doubt about how their own second innings would pan out, given everything this Test team has achieved already under Stokes' captaincy.
"With our team and the way that we play our cricket now, we'll be making sure we give ourselves a chance of winning the game," he said. "We're not really interested in drawing the match. We want to make sure that we give ourselves the best chance of winning it.
"If Pakistan are good enough to beat us then so be it, but we've got three big wickets to take tomorrow. And then we'll try and crash a few around and get ourselves to a reasonable total, but I'm sure there's still a lot of entertaining cricket to be played in the next couple of days."
Shafique, likewise, knows what's in store, and was adamant that Pakistan are ready to respond in kind when the time comes. "We have also a positive approach about that," he said. "There is no approach of going for the draw, because the way England play, they will play attacking again. It will give us a good total, so we will fight it out."
Late wickets give England an opening after Babar leads big Pakistan show with the bat
Pakistan lost four wickets in the final session to finish the day 158 behind with three first-innings wickets left
Stumps Pakistan 499 for 7 (Babar 136, Imam 121, Shafique 114, Salman 10, Zahid 1, Jacks 3-132, Leach 2-160) trail England 657 by 158 runs
Four late wickets rewarded England for some hard graft on a pitch where runs have ruled, keeping their prospects of pushing for victory over Pakistan in this first Test alive.
Centuries to Pakistan openers Imam-ul-Haq and Abdullah Shafique as well as Babar Azam, their captain, on a Rawalpindi track that has now yielded seven centuries, had gone some way to plugging England's torrent of 657 first-innings runs at better than a run a ball. But debutant Will Jacks claimed three wickets among England's seven for the day to keep control in their hands, despite a barren middle session highlighted by Babar's classy 136.
Jacks found out only minutes before the match started that he would be playing as a replacement for Ben Foakes, who failed to recover in time from the stomach bug that hit the England camp in the lead-up. By the end of the third day, Jacks had bowled 33 overs, while his fellow debutant and part-time spinner Liam Livingstone sat in the dressing room nursing a knee injury.
Pakistan resumed on 181 without loss and Shafique, who started the day on 89, was the first to bring up his hundred, clubbing Joe Root over the deep-midwicket boundary in the fifth over of the day to move to 99 before carving the next ball behind point for a single. Imam followed, bringing up his century with a four through the leg side off Root, after resuming on 90.
It was the first time a Test match had featured two double-century opening stands and only the second time the four openers had scored hundreds, though the first time it had occurred in the first two innings.
Jacks replaced Root and his first ball of the day was pummelled through the covers by Shafique but, three balls later, Shafique tried to cut a wider one and edged behind to Ollie Pope, standing in for Foakes as wicketkeeper.
Imam launched frontline spinner Jack Leach for six over wide long-on the over after Shafique was dismissed, but Leach soon responded with the second wicket of the morning, Imam picking out Ollie Robinson at long-on to fall for 121.
While they hadn't been scoring at England's blistering rate, Pakistan's opening stand of 225 didn't look bad in comparison to the record 233 put on by Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett.
James Anderson saw a chance go begging when he found an inside edge off Azhar Ali only to see it zip through Crawley's fingers at leg slip as he reached to his left.
Despite faint hints of reverse swing, England took the new ball shortly before lunch and handed it to Leach, who trapped Azhar lbw almost immediately with one that skidded on to the knee roll in line with leg stump, giving England three wickets for the morning.
During the afternoon, however, Babar cashed in. He punished anything short, swinging Jacks powerfully through the leg side for four three times either side of his advance down the pitch to launch Leach for six over long-on and bring up his fifty.
With Root bowling wide of off stump and five fielders stationed on the off side, Babar wouldn't bite, simply stepping across and hammering the ball straight past the bowler to the boundary.
Ben Stokes entered the fray but after nailing a bouncer his next delivery, a softer short ball was met with disdain by Babar, who dispatched it down the ground to move to 90. Twice more in the space of four balls he sent Stokes short balls to the boundary, the latter flayed through the covers to bring up his eighth Test century and first against England.
In vain attempts to gain something - anything - with the ball, Root roamed round the field seeking sweaty foreheads to rub directly with the shiny side, first seizing on Leach's bald pate and then thrusting it under the raised peak of Pope's cap.
But the tea break was the tonic for England, with Robinson prising out debutant Saud Shakeel with the fourth ball after the interval, one that angled across and drew a loose edge behind to end a solid 37.
Mohammad Rizwan arrived at the crease and, after getting off the mark driving Robinson through the covers for four, helped himself to four boundaries in one Jacks over. The first came off the toe-end of the bat clearing Anderson at mid-on and was followed by three more decisive strokes, a pull and twin slog-sweeps, as he cruised to 20 all in boundaries.
It was Jacks who finally removed Babar, chipping to Leach at point, and then Anderson claimed his first when he had Rizwan caught low by Stokes at short midwicket for 29. In the fading light, England turned again to Jacks and capitalised when Naseem Shah holed out to Leach, running in from deep midwicket.
Harry Brook: 'If it's there to drive, drive, and if it's there to cut, cut it'
No-nonsense approach from rookie reaps rewards in record-breaking display
After scoring 506 for four on the opening day of the first Test in Rawalpindi, Ben Stokes had one last word for his charges ahead of day two. "We've broken some records yesterday, let's try and break some more today." Harry Brook took those words to heart.
In a remarkable morning session that saw England add 151 more runs to finish their first innings on 657, Brook smashed 54 from 35 balls to finish on 153 from 116 in only his second Test innings. With that came the accomplishment of scoring 150 faster than any other Englishman, smashing (by 20 balls) the mark of 135 that Stokes set in a similar onslaught against South Africa in Cape Town seven years ago. He is the fourth quickest to 150 overall, with Brook's head coach Brendon McCullum still out in front with a 103-ball effort against Sri Lanka in 2014.
As it happens, it was on the way past his captain that Brook broke a record of his own, one that had not even stood for 24 hours. After clubbing six fours in a row off Saud Shakeel to become the first Englishman to achieve the feat in a single Test over, he went three better on Friday with 27 off legspinner Zahid Mahmood. This one featured four fours and a six, clubbed effortlessly down the ground, and it could have been as high as 30, had he got hold of the final delivery, instead of top-edging a swipe for three down to fine leg.
"With the amount of runs we had on the board, we had the freedom to go out and play however we wanted," Brook explained, wide-eyed like a kid told he'd be left home alone with a stocked drinks cabinet. "I wouldn't say I was being reckless until I got out, but no, I took the positive option and played my shots."
It hasn't been a bad few weeks for Brook, who became a world champion with England in the T20 World Cup before enjoying a fortnight at home to move into a new house, before heading out here. And just as he has shown across formats, there was no discernible change in how he went into both days, beyond a projected liberation that his maiden Test century was now under his belt, by the time he walked back to the middle on Friday morning, resuming on 101 not out.
As ever with Brook, it was a no-nonsense approach, rooted in sensibility. When discussing his 27-run over, he was as matter-of-fact as you would expect a Yorkshireman to be, especially when comparing it to Thursday's 24.
"That first set he bowled six bad balls and I just put them away, the second set obviously he came round the wicket, I felt like reverse was quite a free option, so I took it on first ball and then had to change, and then it got later in the over and I was getting closer to the record, so my eyes lit up then."
What was noticeable was how the crowd seemed to vibe most with Brook. That he is engaging to watch is one thing, but there was a sense this local Pindi crowd were enamoured by someone they might, in some way, consider one of their own. He enjoyed a fruitful spell with Lahore Qalandars in the Pakistan Super League - 264 runs at 52.80, including a top score of 102 not out - and wowed all watchers during England's T20 series in the country a couple of months ago.
"Obviously I've had quite a bit of experience [in Pakistan] but I've never played here before - so to come here and the pitch is quite similar to the other grounds is quite nice.
"I feel like it's true, so you can play it as it comes down really, if it's there to drive, drive and if it's there to cut, cut it."
As for how he expects England to find 20 wickets from this surface, he remained tight-lipped.
"I can't tell you that, we've got three days to play yet!" he joked when pressed on any tactics. "We went through a few plans there, probably stick to bowling straight. It's going to start getting lower I think, and it's going to start going underground.
"If we start there hopefully we can get a few lb[w]s which keep low and obviously we tried the bouncers. It's just about striking at the right time and going bang, bang really."
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