One assumes the captain got the boys together at lunchtime. “Carpe diem, chaps”, he declared and left it at that. They would know what to do. And so they did. It is the mark of a good side that they can seize the moment and this is not the first time this England team has taken control of a game that was tottering in the balance.
Think of Johannesburg earlier this year, the Lord’s Test against New Zealand last summer, the victory over Australia at Chester-le-Street in 2013 or Sri Lanka at Cardiff in 2011.
When they scent a possibility they have the capacity to up the intensity of their play. The catches stick in the hands of fielders stationed in unusual positions as the bowlers unearth some extra zip from somewhere.
At lunchtime Pakistan were 69 for one; the pitch, as Joel Garner used to observe during a rare barren spell, “she was sleeping”. The sun was out and Sami Aslam and Azhar Ali, Pakistan’s best batsmen in this match, were in. The chances of the Birmingham public opting to “walk up” to Edgbaston were slim. This was a lazy Sunday afternoon. Surely Pakistan had got no mind to worry. It would be all-square at The Oval.
It may just be there was no “carpe diem” speech from Alastair Cook but these lunchtime perorations are not unknown. The coach, Trevor Bayliss, out of character, delivered some stern home truths during the interval on the last day of that Johannesburg Test to good effect. Even more unlikely was the sight and sound of England’s famously laid-back captain, David Gower, in 1984 in Delhi, informing his troops in surprisingly vehement and industrial language at lunch on the fifth day that there was a game to be won. And it was won as India collapsed on the final afternoon.
Here the England bowlers refused to be cowed by the docility of the pitch. Most of them have been around long enough to know odd things happen on the fifth day of an arduous contest no matter how bland the surface. Moreover those who play Test cricket in this century seldom anticipate a draw when there has been no rain. Often the catalyst for an English victory in these circumstances has been Stuart Broad, the streakiest of bowlers, who can suddenly become galvanised like a terrier picking up a scent.
That was not quite the case here. Broad has struggled in this match without bowling badly. Yet inevitably he had a part to play. He may have lost his out-swinger but he can still will batsmen to their doom.
He took the first wicket, that of Mohammed Hafeez, with a delivery as harmless as a dove, a slow, short one which Hafeez obligingly helped to the fielder on the long-leg boundary. Later he persuaded Mohammad Amir to crunch a drive straight to an unorthodox point, not quite the classic mode of dismissal against a nasty fasty. For the moment Broad’s bowling may have lost a bit of venom but he still has the knack of imposing himself.
In fact England may be encouraged that Broad was not the main man in the dismantling of Pakistan’s batsmen. The wickets were shared around with remarkable symmetry, two to each bowler; the wit of Moeen Ali and Cook was rewarded when Azhar contrived to slice the ball to gully, a rare fielding position for an off-spinner bowling to a right-hander.
Jimmy Anderson bowled a sublime spell from the Pavilion end, in which his solitary, yet crucial reward was the wicket of Younis Khan.
But the stampede came when Steven Finn and Chris Woakes were in harness just before tea and 124 for three became 125 for seven in the blink of an eye. Finn has had his woes in this series. As he ran up to bowl at Misbah-ul-Haq he had bowled 68 overs in this series without taking a wicket. Perhaps the potential of the situation allowed Finn to forget the complexities of his barren trot. At last a touch of away swing found the edge of the bat and he was a bowler transformed, who would soon clatter the off stump of the doughty Aslam.
In this series it is impossible to keep Woakes out of the action for long. Now he bounded in from the City End; there was no obvious swing or movement for him but there was immense energy. England’s fastest bowler was also eager to impose himself on the situation. Who knows whether Ian Botham up in the commentary box cast his mind back to a sunny day and dry pitch at Edgbaston in 1981 when the Australians were suddenly swept away as Woakes dispatched Asad Shafiq and Sarfraz Ahmed in swift succession?
Thus the moment had been seized – this England side are dangerous when they are still in the game on the fifth day – and a memorable victory ensued. Aslam had grabbed his chance rather brilliantly in this match as well but with defeat comes anonymity. Given the paucity of alternatives he will have many more chances to prosper now, starting with the Oval Test on Thursday.
