"Start of new era" - Twitteratis react to England's 74-run win over Pakistan in 1st Test

England continued their terrific run in Test cricket under the new dawn of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum.

The Three Lions defeated Pakistan by 74 runs in the first Test at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Monday, December 5, in what was their first Test match in the country after 17 years.

In another run-feast game of Test cricket in Rawalpindi this year, the result was inevitable to be determined on the fifth day. The match was evenly poised at the end of Day 4 as Pakistan were in need of 263 runs, while England had to pick eight more wickets.

Anderson dismissed Imam-ul-Haq early on Day 5, when the latter was just two runs short of his fifty. Imam poked Anderson's delivery going down the leg for Ollie Pope to pouch it with a brilliant effort behind the wickets.

Mohammad Rizwan, with his mixed approach of tedious yet aggressive, built an important partnership with Saud Shakeel in the middle as Pakistan finished 169/4 at lunch.

Rizwan departed shortly after lunch and Shakeel followed him to the dressing room after a while. Azhar Ali, who returned after declaring retirement hurt yesterday, and Agha Salman carried the momentum by ticking the runs. The duo forged an unbeaten stand of 59 at the end of tea, with Pakistan at 257 for 5, 86 runs short of the target in the final session of an enthralling Test match.

However, the England bowlers showed trust in their ability to pull things back into their corner. Ollie Robinson made a big statement about his selection in the flat conditions and got the wickets of Azhar and Agha in quick succession.

Senior man James Anderson joined the party with the dismissals of Zahid Mahmood and Haris Rauf before Jack Leach trapped Naseem Shah for LBW as Pakistan crumbled to 268 all out in 96.3 overs.

Here's how cricket fans reacted to England's dominating win over the hosts in the first Test.

Turns out @benstokes38 knew what he was doing with that declaration 🤨

#PAKvENG https://t.co/rP63HVFMjF

Only the third Test victory for England in Pakistan 👏

#WTC23 | #PAKvENG | bit.ly/PAK-v-ENG-1st-… https://t.co/ed5OvVlvB1

Jimmy Anderson, Ollie Robinson, Ben Stokes make this pitch full of life. This was docile, this was dull but they woke it up through tremendous effort and hard work

#ENGvsPAK #PAKvsENG #CricketTwitter #ENGvPAK #PAKvENG

England deserved to win this test match. This will be the start of new era of positive approach in test matches. #PAKvENG

Ben Stokes not only showed bravery in that declaration, he showed love for test cricket. He wanted it to be entertaining
#PAKvENG

Fortune favours the brave indeed ! A magnificent well deserved victory by England over a confused scared Pakistan team as always. What a declaration by Ben Stokes yesterday to engineer this win out of nowhere. Bazball wins over this messy SaqYusball. #PakvsEng2022 #PAKvENG

Redefining the test cricket 👇👇

#PAKvENG twitter.com/ESPNcricinfo/s…

Great job team England. Rubbish pitch but the Englishmen did something excellent here. Almost felt like it would end as a draw. Test cricket again being the winner here. #PAKvENG

Last 10 mins on Day 5, men around the bat & pad blown off for the win. Test Cricket ❤️ #PAKvENG twitter.com/skycricket/sta…

@englandcricket Amazing test match and amazing win for England, which at times looked unlikely, by 74 runs over @pakistancricket
As a Captain it doesn't get any better when a declaration pays off like that @benstokes38 🙂👍

Congratulations England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

#PAKvENG
#TestCricket
#englandcricket

That game had draw written all over it! Brave decision to declare and go for it! #PAKvENG

@bbctms @BBCSounds @BBCSport England made the #PAKvENG test match into an entertainment spectacle. If more test matches were played this way, the future for Tests would be secured.

Time to consider batting points based on first innings run rate in county matches?

James Anderson becomes third highest wicket-taker in international cricket

With his 4/36 in the second innings, James Anderson surpassed former Indian leg-spinner Anil Kumble (956) in the list of most international wickets. Anderson now has 959 wickets across all formats - 672 Tests, 269 ODIs & 18 T20Is - and he is only behind the late Shane Warne (1001) and Muttiah Muralitharan (1347)