England won the first Test against Pakistan in Rawalpindi by 74 4uns in an exciting finish on the final day and took a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.

Pakistan had a golden chance to win the Test, but losing wickets session by session kept the home side away from what could have been a memorable win. Saud Shakeel (76), Mohammad Rizwan (46) and Azhar Ali (40) failed to capitalise on their good starts.

It was the third Test win for England in Pakistan. Their previous two wins came in Lahore in 1961 and Karachi in 2000. England have played 25 Tests in Pakistan, lost only four as 18 ended in a draw.

England’s skipper Ben Stokes described the win as “one of England’s greatest away Test wins”.

Veteran fast bowler James Anderson, who has been part of 79 Test wins — the most for any England player, also said that England’s dramatic 74-run was “one of the best” victories of his career when there were only minutes to spare on the final day.

The placid nature of the pitch required bowlers on both sides to “dig deep”. The Pindi pitch yielded 1768 runs, the third-highest aggregate in history. Batsmen of the both sides dominated on the first three days of the Test and a tame draw was the first expected result. But a bold decision of declaration from the visitors at tea on the 4th day suddenly changed the game complexion. Skipper Stokes gave the Green-shirts four sessions to achieve the target of 343.

Interestingly, in the batsmen-dominated Test, England’s fast bowler Ollie Robinson received the Man-of-the-Match award with match figures of 5-122.

Cricket fans in Pakistan and all over the world were waiting to see a good contest between the two high-profile teams, but the pitch turned out to be the flattest one.

By preparing dead pitches, the authorities are doing a disservice to the Test format.

Though the Pindi Test ended in an interesting fashion, the management should concentrate on the betterment of Test cricket which is real cricket. Test matches on dead pitches can’t attract fans and sponsors.

Pakistan may be the only cricket nation which doesn’t know the meaning of home advantage. If Pakistan players struggle on Australian or South African soil, it’s understandable, but when they fail to win at home, it’s hugely disappointing.

The management never provides conditions to their players according to their strength. When we had the best attack comprising Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Shoaib Akhtar, the authorities never provided pacer-friendly pitches fearing that if home bowlers could bowl the opposition cheaply, our batsmen would also struggle against the visitors bowling attack.

If attention is not given to infrastructure, Pakistan will continue struggling in Test cricket not only abroad but even at home and playing the World Championship final will remain a dream.

The PCB curators disappointed not only the players and the fans, but also the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chief Ramiz Raja who said, “It is embarrassing for us, especially when you have a cricketer as chairman.”

Ramiz accepted that Pakistan is living in “the dark ages of pitch preparation” owing to a decade-long hiatus of Test cricket in the country. He said it would take at least another season for the quality of pitches to begin improving.

This is not an issue of not leaving grass on the pitch. The grass looks good aesthetically but we need to create bounce, which can happen without grass, as happens on Australian pitches.

In March this year, 1,187 runs were scored for the loss of just 14 wickets as Pakistan and Australia played out a tame draw on the same Rawalpindi wicket.

The ICC’s Match Referee Ranjan Madugalle in a statement after the Test said that the Rawalpindi pitch did not provide sufficient contest between bat and ball and the character of the pitch hardly changed over the course of five days. He declared the Pindi pitch “below average” and awarded one demerit point under the ICC pitch and outfield monitoring process.

If the Pindi stadium receives five demerit points over a rolling five-year period, it will lose the right to host international cricket for a period of 12 months.

The 1768 runs scored in Rawalpindi are also the most in a Test match to produce a result. The previous highest was 1753 runs between Australia and England in 1921 at the Adelaide Oval.

On day 1 in the Pindi Test, England scored 506 runs for the loss of just four wickets and became the first team in Test history to score 500 runs on the first day of a Test match. The previous highest was 494 made by Australia against South Africa in Sydney in 1910.

England’s 506 is also the second-most scored by any team in a single day of Test cricket, behind Sri Lanka’s 509 on day two against Bangladesh in 2002.

England also became the first team ever whose four batsmen scored centuries on the first day of a Test. Australia had managed three centuries twice - once in 1884 against England and once in 2012 against South Africa.

It was the first time in Test history that both openers from both teams scored hundreds in the first innings of a Test match.

Surprisingly, English pace bowlers took 9 wickets in the fourth innings. Only one visiting team’s fast bowlers took more wickets in the fourth innings of a Test in Asia.

England’s run rate of 6.50 during their mammoth 657 in the first innings was the highest for a team in a Test innings of 100-plus overs. The previous highest was 5.36 by Sri Lanka during their 555 for five in 103.3 overs against Bangladesh in 2001.

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