Alastair Cook hails one of England's best victories as hosts overcome Pakistan to take series lead

Winning feeling: England players celebrate at Edgbaston
PAUL ELLIS/AFP/Getty Images
By Tom Collomosse7 August 2016

Alastair Cook hailed one of England’s best victories under his captaincy after they overcame Pakistan by 141 runs.

England were behind the game for much of the Test at Edgbaston but blew away the tourists on the final day, bowling them out for 201 inside 71 overs to take a 2-1 lead in the Investec Series.

Cook said: “The win is right up there. Everyone will be very proud to feel as though they contributed and that doesn’t always happen.

“There were probably hundreds left out there by our batsmen and that put pressure on the next guy, but they responded. Maybe the side have toughened up a bit since last year.

“Everyone dug in. We knew they would come hard at us in this game but we knew we could hurt them and we managed to do that.

“We have a long way to go but when we batted on day four, I saw a side really determined to do what we had spoken about. It has to happen a lot more before we say we have fulfilled our potential but it’s a good step along the way.”

England have named an unchanged 13-man squad for the final Test at The Kia Oval, which starts on Thursday.

But they may be without batsman James Vince, who dislocated a finger attempting to take a catch in the slip cordon during Pakistan’s innings. He went for a scan on Sunday.

Pakistan captain Misbah-ul-Haq, meanwhile, admitted his batsmen had no answer when England started to generate reverse-swing.

He said: “It was easy before lunch but after that they got it reversing and we didn’t have any clue. Bowlers like Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad are used to these conditions.”

The tourists are also hampered by the poor form of opener Mohammad Hafeez and middle-order batsman Younis Khan, who they expected to be two pillars of their team on this tour.

Misbah added: “It is a concern for anyone. Younis has played such an important role in Pakistan Test cricket and he can recover form at any stage. It is early to say anything about him and we believe in him.

“We need to sit and think about what we have to do. Instead of panicking, we have to find solutions and the next game is very important."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in