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The clock had just ticked past 7pm, there was still half an hour of play left on this soggy second day, and it looked for all money that Harry Brook would end a year-long wait for his 11th Test century with a first at his home ground of Headingley.
Brook had agonisingly missed out by one run against India here last summer. And this time, against a ragged Pakistan side that had handed him a life second ball amid another outing to forget, the box was practically begging to be ticked.
And then it happened. With 91 runs to his name, Brook rocked back and went to push the left-arm spin of Ali Usman through vacant midwicket only to swipe at fresh air and hear the ball cannon on to his stumps. Brook came into this match as the world’s No 1-ranked batter but this particular local peak remains elusive.
For all that Brook was cursing himself back in the dressing room, and Usman struck twice more before stumps – he ended the day with five for 92 – it was not hugely damaging to England’s position. At stumps Joe Root’s side had progressed to 366 for eight, and a lead of 195 runs, with victory inside three days not beyond the realms of possibility.
Saying as much is dangerous at a ground famous for its turnarounds, likewise against a team with a history of producing the unexpected. But across the 57 overs of play that were possible, as Root (66), Jordan Cox (73), and Dan Lawrence (51) similarly made unconverted half-centuries, it was hard to be upbeat about the tourists.
It was already looking a long way back for Pakistan after that ruinous first day at the hands of Ollie Robinson and Josh Tongue. But with a night’s sleep, and rain halting the match until 2.45pm, they had time to regroup; time to think about what caused their own dismissals before harnessing helpful conditions themselves.
Unfortunately a side that came into this series amid low expectations managed to somehow fall short of even these. Across the two overcast sessions, floodlights at full beam, their quicks failed to match Robinson’s relentless line and length, chances went begging, and their ground fielding was borderline slapstick.
Summing it up was Usman trying to stop a boundary with his boot at one stage and kicking it over the rope. Unathletic as this was, at least Usman was trying to cut off the boundary. At times this seemed beneath Mohammad Abbas and Mohammad Ali, two men who would doubtless expect better off their own bowling.
The daft thing was, Pakistan actually had a sniff here. Root and Cox had looked largely untroubled after resuming on 112 for two, a stand of 150 pushing England past parity and into the lead. Cox in particular looked so assured in his second Test, the new No 3 owning the space and feasting on a string of freebies.
But when both men fell in successive overs against the run of play – Cox edging Usman behind, Root trapped lbw falling over to the previously wayward Khurram Shahzhad – England were suddenly four wickets down, just 31 runs ahead. Here was an opportunity that Pakistan simply had to grasp.
The same went for the wafted edge that Brook immediately sent into the slip cordon second ball, only for the stand-in skipper, Salman Ali Agha, to dive across Imam-ul-Haq and put it down. Agha left the field for treatment – embarrassment may have played a part here – and Brook scarcely looked back thereafter.
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At the other end was Lawrence, a player handed another stab at Test cricket after becoming collateral damage during the Bazball experiment, and between them they put on 120 more runs for the fifth wicket. Usman was getting grip from the surface but struggled with control, while Pakistan’s medium-fast seamers continued to toil.
A further opportunity came and went for Pakistan here, and once again the upshot was high farce. Lawrence danced down to Usman on 37 and was struck on the pad, with the rebound presenting Agha with a chance to run him out from slip. But the throw crashed into Mohammad Rizwan’s back as the wicketkeeper continued his appeal for lbw. Better awareness might have seen him get out of the way.
Lawrence eventually fell trying to mow Usman over cow corner and sending it skywards off the top edge, the latest in a string of anticlimactic moments in the gloom. Root could have started his second stint as captain with a century, while the effervescent Cox could have announced himself to the world.
But none of these near-misses compared to the collective sigh that met Brook’s late dismissal. For all that he took just 55 balls to make his half-century, and had just faced 93 by the time Usman hit the timber, Brook had played a mature knock, guiding his 13 fours, rather than trying to smoke them, and looking switched on.
Despite being the best pitch in the country, and a place positively dripping in history, somehow this is Headingley’s last men’s Test match until 2029. Unless Pakistan can deliver the unthinkable with the bat second time around, Brook’s wait for a century on his home ground is going to be a long one.
