Twitter Reactions: Joe Root, Harry Brook tons put England in strong position against Pakistan on Day 3
England are trailing by just 64 runs.
On Day 3 of the first Test between Pakistan and England, after the hosts posted a humongous total of 556, the visitors lost their stand-in skipper, Ollie Pope, who went back without troubling the scorers at all. Zak Crawley (78) paired up with Joe Root to put in 109 runs for the second wicket. Root was accompanied by Ben Duckett (84) in the middle as both batters stitched another 136 runs for the third wicket.
Thereafter, Harry Brook arrived and smashed 21 runs in just 15 balls and the momentum was complemented by Root from the other end. Both the batters started exerting pressure on the Pakistan bowlers, as the duo hit four boundaries off Shaheen Afridi combined in an over. At the end of the day's play, Root and Brook remained unbeaten on 176* and 141* runs, respectively.
Root, while he was batting on 71, broke the record for the highest run-getter in Tests for England. He overtook the former England skipper, Alastair Cook, to reach the coveted spot. He brought up his 35th Test Ton and with that, he surpassed legendary Sunil Gavaskar’s (34) century tally as well. Moreover, in the process, he also surpassed Mahela Jayawardene, Younis Khan, and Brian Lara.
England batters made Pakistan bowlers toil hard
Speaking of Pakistan bowlers, they had to toil hard for wickets as their pace battery in Shaheen Afridi, Naseem Shah, and Aamer Jamal picked one wicket each. They failed to break the partnership between Harry Brook and Joe Root as they shared an unbeaten 243-run stand between them. Notably, this was also the highest partnership for England on Pakistani soil. They went ahead of the 233 runs scored by Zak Crawley and Ben Ducket for the first wicket at Rawalpindi in 2022.
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Currently, the English side is trailing by just 64 runs. Interestingly, they also almost broke their record for most runs scored by a team on a single day in Pakistan. Back in 2022, England had smashed a mind-boggling 506 runs in Rawalpindi. Hence they missed by a whisker to break that record by just 14 runs. In totality, the visitors will now hope to take the lead soon and score briskly in a bid to effect any result in the first test of the series. While Pakistan will hope to wrap up England quickly.
Meanwhile, Here's how 'X' users reacted to England's innings:
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