England beat Pakistan by an innings and 103 runs at Headingley, inside three days, in the first match of a three-Test series. More than half a day was lost to rain, which makes the margin more emphatic rather than less.
England made 409. Pakistan were dismissed twice for a combined total 103 runs short of it, which is what the margin means.
What winning by an innings is
For readers who do not follow cricket, this is the one term worth explaining, because it sounds like jargon and is actually the whole story.
In a Test match each side normally bats twice. England batted once, scored 409, and then bowled Pakistan out in both of their innings for fewer runs in total than England had made in that single visit to the crease. Because England were already ahead with a full innings in hand, they never had to bat again. The margin, an innings and 103 runs, means Pakistan finished 103 short even after batting twice.
It is the most decisive result available in the format. There is no equivalent of a narrow innings victory.
The bowling
Three England bowlers took three wickets each in the second innings: Josh Tongue with 3-43, Ollie Robinson with 3-29 and Jofra Archer with 3-50. Across the match, Tongue finished with 8-89 and Robinson with 8-80, career-best figures for both.
Two bowlers producing career-best match figures in the same game is unusual, and it points at conditions as well as skill. Headingley in late August, under cloud, with a Dukes ball that swings, is about as favorable an environment as exists for fast bowling of that type. Pakistan's batters had no period in which the ball stopped moving.
The scale of the collapse shows in the top score. Mohammad Rizwan's 41 was the highest individual innings by any Pakistan batter in the match. No one passed fifty.
Root's record
Joe Root took his 219th Test catch, moving past Steve Smith to the top of the all-time list for catches by a fielder, a category that excludes wicketkeepers, who take far more.
Slip catching is the least discussed of cricket's specialist skills and among the hardest, requiring a player to stand a few meters from the bat for six hours and be ready for a chance that may come once. Doing it 219 times is a record of concentration as much as of hands.
The series
The second Test begins at Lord's on Thursday, with Pakistan hoping to have their captain Babar Azam available after a finger injury.
They will need him and more. Losing inside three days having batted twice leaves little to salvage tactically, and the problem Pakistan must solve before Thursday is not a matter of adjustment but of whether their batting can survive high-quality seam bowling in English conditions at all. On this evidence it could not.
