Cook and Root restate basic values with twin tons

England 314 for 4 (Root 141*, Cook 105) v PakistanScorecard and ball-by-ball details

For England, the opening forays in the Old Trafford Test presented a chance to restate basic values, an opportunity to eradicate the slackness that had characterised their batting during a 75-run defeat at Lord’s. Their leading lights, Alastair Cook and Joe Root, did their utmost to set the tone: centuries claimed by both on a day of Pakistan toil.

England were fortunate they did because Alex Hales, James Vince and Gary Ballance – the latter against the second new ball – all fell cheaply as the middle order failed to assert itself in excellent batting conditions.

Cook’s 29th Test hundred took him alongside Don Bradman, albeit in about three times as many innings, and there was such a skip in his step that he had it signed, sealed and delivered 15 minutes before tea, his second fifty at virtually a run a ball.

It would have been tempting to call it an immaculate hundred on a flawless pitch, were it not for the evidence of what became the last ball before tea. He was bowled for 105 by Mohammad Amir, betrayed on the back foot by a delivery that scuttled through malevolently to bowl him off a defensive cue end.

Root was 87 upon Cook’s dismissal, the partnership worth 185 in 49 overs, but his desire to recalibrate extended to the close at which point he was unbeaten on 141. There has been a growing sense that Root has felt in such bountiful form at the crease that he has been lulled into over ambition, but this was an innings of unremitting virtue, straighter of stroke, as he committed himself to eliminating risk and was rewarded for his discretion.

The last time Cook made a Test hundred, it broke Len Hutton’s record for the longest Test innings, in terms of minutes, ever assembled by an England batsman. Pakistan conceded that one, too, in a high-scoring stalemate in Abu Dhabi in November. There will be some suffering for bowlers before this Test turns in their favour, but stalemate seems unlikely.

Amir possessed most verve for Pakistan. He had received a gracious welcome at Lord’s on his return to Test cricket and the sense of a sentence served, and a career reborn, largely survived in Manchester. There …

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