Day 2: England 290 and 81-3 (Shahzad 2-26) lead Pakistan 110 (Robinson 4-11, Archer 3-26) by 261 runs
LORD’S — As well as England bowled on day two of this second Test, by the time they routed Pakistan for 110 to establish a first-innings lead of 180 you were left feeling that perhaps this was a glimpse into a dystopian future for the sport’s oldest format.
Test cricket has been written off for much of its 150-year history. But as Ollie Robinson and Jofra Archer tormented Pakistan’s batting line-up at Lord’s, the charade that this was actually a proper contest evaporated. We all knew the result at this point, even if England tried to keep things interesting by losing a couple of early wickets in their second innings.
Sport without consequence is boring. So more mismatches like this really do threaten to kill off Test cricket.
Bangladesh were rightly lauded for their landmark win against the Australians in Darwin earlier this month. But it’s the fact these results are so rare that makes them so newsworthy.
Jofra Archer was part of a fearsome four-man pace attack on Friday (Photo: PA)Many fear that in the near future only matches between England, Australia and India will be either competitive or meaningful.
Joe Root won’t care – for now
Pakistan are bad. We know this. Last week’s two-and-a-half-day innings walkover for England at Headingley told us that much.
But at what point does Test cricket cease to be watchable?
Joe Root, in his second match back as captain, will not care. England have not won a series since December 2024 and in a week where the team’s off-field issues came to the fore yet again, another one-sided victory will be manna from heaven.
Nor will Robinson, whose haul of four for 11 from 13 overs at an economy rate of 0.84, was the latest chapter of a remarkable summer where he has taken 19 wickets in three Tests at 8.84.
The Pakistan captain goes! Tongue gets Babar Match Centre: t.co/Z9bsIoMyb6 pic.twitter.com/UfICkAmg6d
— England Cricket (@englandcricket) August 28, 2026Jofra Archer, who hit close to 95 miles per hour on a day when he took three wickets, was sensational. As was Josh Tongue, whose two for 27 took his total in this current World Test Championship cycle to 55. Only Australia’s Mitchell Starc has more.
England are building a bowling attack to be excited about as we head into next summer’s home Ashes series.
But what are they up against? Take nothing away from the skill and hard work of England’s bowlers. Nor the efforts of the batters.
But they have been given perhaps the perfect opponents to face following a summer of upheaval.
Mismatches such as last week’s in Leeds and are the current debacle at Lord’s do not bode well for the future.
Pakistan are their own special case given the dysfunction at the top of their own board.
The real reason Test cricket is dying
Yet the economic imbalance in the world game right now means that regardless of how incompetent or not individual boards are, they will always be struggling to keep their Test teams competitive. That’s because odds are stacked too far in favour of the “Big Three” of England, Australia and India, who take around 53 per cent of the £468m distributed annually by the International Cricket Council. India’s share of that is almost 40 per cent.
Their individual broadcast deals – the England & Wales Cricket Board’s current one with Sky is worth £220m a year – are even more significant for two reasons.
Many countries struggle to get viable deals at all and so actually lose money hosting Test cricket – unless it’s against India, the biggest draw in the world. They also struggle to pay their top players decent central contracts, meaning the best are incentivised to play franchise cricket rather than for their nations.
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Chris Stocks: England have been shown how to bat properly again Vernon Philander: I taught Ollie Robinson to bowl slower – England are so wrong about paceSo teams outside the “Big Three” end up playing less Test cricket and lose the services of their most talented players. This will only get worse as the franchise world gets bigger and more lucrative.
England’s top centrally-contracted players earn around £1.5m a year. It means someone like Harry Brook can sidestep the Indian Premier League and not worry about it financially.
Yet the West Indies pay their contracted players less than £200,000 a year. This is replicated across other nations.
Things could be done to help, such as a fairer ICC redistribution model or the “Big Three” paying fees to touring teams.
Yet there seems little will from those who count. If that remains the case, the end result will be more mismatches like this.
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