James Anderson reveals England star was 'puking up' throughout Pakistan win

James Anderson has lauded the ‘incredible effort’ of his England team-mates as they battled not only Pakistan and an unresponsive pitch but also a viral bug during their remarkable victory in Rawalpindi.

More than half of England’s playing squad were hit by a viral infection on the eve of the Test, with the ECB and PCB in talks over whether the match needed to be postponed by a day.

But England were able to field an XI for the series opener, only losing Ben Foakes to illness as Will Jacks was handed his Test debut, and the match went ahead as planned.

Joe Root was one of a handful of England players who trained the day before the Test but Anderson has revealed his former captain was struggling throughout the Test, regularly ‘puking up’ in the dressing room.

‘I can’t really put it into words because it’s hard. It was an awful start to the week,’ England’s record wicket-taker, 40, said.

‘Actually, the morning of the game, not knowing if we’re going to get 11 players on the field or going to bed the night before not knowing if we’re going to wake up and there’s going to be enough fit players.

‘But then the way the lads have just stood up and just cracked on really, there’s been no whinging.

‘Rooty has been off the field every half an hour puking up throughout the game, which was an amazing effort from him to bat the way he did.

‘Then, to be out on the field. An incredible effort from everyone. And I still can’t quite believe we’ve got a result on this pitch. It’s just incredible.’

In a remarkable Test match, England posted 657 in just 101 overs as Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope and Harry Brook all made fluent centuries on day one.

Despite this, the Test appeared to be heading for a dull draw as Pakistan responded with 579 – Imam ul-Haq, Abdullah Shafique and Babar Azam scoring tons.

But England then smashed 264 in 36 overs before declaring, giving Pakistan four sessions to chase 343 on a pitch that remained superb for batting.

The hosts were in the driving seat at 176-3 and 259-5 but England produced a heroic final session to bowl Pakistan out late on day five for 268.

Anderson, who took four wickets in the final innings, added: ‘The lads are saying that is the best away victory but I can’t remember many better than that at home either to be honest.

‘To force the result on that wicket just took an absolutely mammoth effort from everyone, the way we batted in the first innings, 650-odd runs in 100-odd overs was outstanding. And everyone contributed to that, which is great.

‘We knew we were going to declare and have a bowl of them that night. We didn’t necessarily think it would be at tea. But the way we batted allowed us to declare at tea and dangle them a carrot, which on this wicket, I think we needed to do.

‘Because, as we saw at the back end of the day when they’ve just dead-batted it, it was very hard to get anything out of it.

‘We knew it was going to be a nervy one. But the way we stuck at our task was just brilliant.’

Pakistan will look to level the three-match series when the second Test starts on Friday in Multan.

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