The dying art of Test batting

The craft of batting long in Test matches, now considered unglamorous and arduous, has made way for a ‘hit out or get out’ variation

Last summer, when England were obsessed with jazzing up Test cricket, chances are you would have missed Pakistan opener Abdullah Shafique’s match-winning 160 at Galle. It was a fourth-innings, 408-ball, nearly nine-hour-long, unbeaten epic. Very few bat this long these days. Shafique still had a hundred to show for his toil.

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January 19, 2021, will forever bear testimony to the spine needed to kick down the doors of an unbreachable Gabba as Cheteshwar Pujara stood firm, blunting Australia for 211