England vs Pakistan: James Anderson and Ollie Robinson lead England to win in first Test

After the tea break in Rawalpindi, Pakistan started with 86 runs needed to win and five wickets left, but England rallied back to earn an improbable triumph as the sun sank over a crowded stadium.

English players surrounded the bat in an extended rearguard effort to secure the last wicket. It was finally broken when Jack Leach outspun Naseem Shah.

Ollie Robinson took two quick wickets in his first Test in the subcontinent to turn the game's tide after the tourists appeared to be labouring in vain with only three seamers on a track where the fast-bowling option looked most likely to create a breakthrough.

After a dismal winter in Australia and the West Indies and doubts about his fitness, the England swing bowler was cut from the squad, but he has recovered in his maiden Test abroad.

Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes stuck to their aggressive and unusual batting and bowling strategies, and they were rewarded with the first away victory for England in 12 Tests.

Match summary

* England won by 74 runs to lead 1-0 in three-match series.

* Tourists win in the gloom as the match nears the end due to bad light.

* Four wickets each for Robinson and Anderson; seamers do damage for England.

* Second Test is to be played in Multan from Friday.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">One of the GREAT test wins .. I don’t know of any Captain in the history of Test cricket that would have got his team to Bat like his team did and then declare when he did .. unbelievable .. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PAKvENG?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PAKvENG</a></p>&mdash; Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) <a href="https://twitter.com/MichaelVaughan/status/1599731645103603714?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 5, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

James Anderson: "I feel like it's the best win I've been involved in away from home and at all really. That wicket was so flat and unresponsive. The way we batted allowed us to set something up. It gave us time to set something up on the back end.

"Today was a monument effort. Stokes put in one of his spells as usual, and we got over the line.

"I think the satisfaction you get from getting a win on a pitch like that, the way we've all played it should give us confidence; we had a good summer, we knew it was going to be a challenge and we all stepped up.

"It was a plan that was working well. It was working for us. Today it was more of a case of bowling traditional lengths and executing your skills as well as you could.

"I personally always believe that we were bowling well enough and I kept the faith until the end."