After a poor display of batting in the first innings, they followed up with a poor display of bowling and clearly 'lost' the first three days by a substantial margin.
There were signs of some life in the second innings with great partnerships from Cook and Hales, also by Bairstow and Ali - it was enough!
Set an impossible winning target in their second innings, Pakistan needed to bat for just over eighty overs on a dead track, which gave no help to the bowlers, if they were to scramble to a draw.
Sensible batting would have made that a certainty - as this wretched pitch was so 'flat' the bowlers had nothing to work with at all.
All they could do was to keep up constant pressure on the Pakistan batsmen and hope that this would affect the last innings.
All they could do was to keep up constant pressure on the Pakistan batsmen and hope that this would affect the last innings.
It did. Pakistan failed to bat sensibly and melted 'in the heat of battle' under England's relentless attack.
There is a great deal of psychology and mind games in cricket almost as much as there are out and out sporting skills.
Phew.
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