On a dream pitch but in nightmarish conditions, Joe Root battled cramps, fatigue and the threat of dehydration for a day at the batting line to take a joyful, painful step into history. Of the three things the 33-year-old had to worry about – the heat, his body and his opponents – the latter were by far the least disruptive on his path to overtaking Alastair Cook and becoming England’s greatest ever runner. scorer and helped his team make Pakistan’s once-daunting first-innings total look inadequate. In the end they stood at 492 for three, trailing by 64, Root was on 176 – and Harry Brook wasn’t far behind on 141 – and the question went from whether he would score a century to whether how many he might like is passed over.

Towards the end, Root could barely limp, let alone run, and having been on the field for all but eight balls in a game played in often oppressive temperatures – he has already spent eight hours and a minute at the crease – his was Discomfort hardly surprising. This was one of those hot days when the best thing about hitting triple figures might have been the opportunity to take off your helmet for a while.

When he was on 86, he tried to sweep Abrar Ahmed and his right leg cramped, causing him to hop backwards in pain. Mohammad Rizwan threatened to outwit him at this point, the kind of wicketkeeping behavior that would send the Long Room at Lord’s into seething apoplexy, but even in his agony Root offered his opponents no chance. The closest Pakistan came to a dismissal was an lbw review, which was a height decision by the umpire. At that point he was at 168.

Along the way he picked up partnerships of 109 with Zak Crawley, 136 with Ben Duckett and an unbeaten 243 with Brook. But for all England’s success, it was hard to criticize the bowlers, who ran bravely but in vain and – like the tourists in the first two days – were simply condemned to labor on a surface useless to the point of sadism.

Earlier this year, Root made fun of Brook for calling him a “grandpa”, but it almost seemed appropriate when he dragged himself into the dressing room at tea, 119 runs and 187 balls into his innings, using his bat as a makeshift walking stick used His fellow Yorkshireman disappeared in front of him, jumping up the steps two at a time. But youth does not protect against these conditions and three overs and just 15 minutes after the restart Brook was lying flat on the ground as the physiotherapist treated his cramped right leg.

This was as close to Brook’s discomfort as it seems, in a country where his record now borders on the ridiculous. This is England’s second Test tour of Pakistan in two years but if the 25-year-old continues this behavior he may not be invited back for a while. This is his sixth innings here and he has only failed to score at least a half-century once, with four of his six Test tons coming here. This may be a welcoming and hospitable nation, but Brook comes dangerously close to taking liberties.

Long before the end, Pakistan had to rely on failures and accidents in their search for wickets, but even these did not come to their aid. When Brook was on 75, he defended a ball from Aamir Jamal that bounced into the ground, up off his chin and thence back down and into the stumps, but by that point even the bails were too broken to move .

The day began with Crawley in superb touch, as he had been on Tuesday night, and he had scored 78 out of 85, including 13 fours, when he headed a harmless throw from Shaheen Shah Afridi straight to Aamir at short midwicket. The dismissal continued a remarkable record for Crawley, who has reached the 70s six times without ever coming out again since his 189th goal against Australia at Old Trafford last summer. In his Test career he has now been dismissed for scores of 73, 73, 76, 76, 76, 77, 78 and 79, and then nothing between that and 121.

His departure brought to light Duckett, who had caused much concern when he left the field the day before because he had apparently suffered a dislocated left thumb, but alleviated this by turning up on Wednesday morning to attend the pre-game the team’s usual pig game on the outfield. For a man whose participation had been questionable, he fought with ridiculous ease and threw himself into the role of Ahmed with particular greed. He scored at such a pace that although Root was on 34 when he came to the crease and added a far-from-sluggish 30 off his next 37 balls, by this point Duckett had a strong edge-over slip and a four to go met him. He had collected 84 off 75 when Aamir caught him lbw and Root made his only poor decision of the day by advising him to play again.

Despite two ducks and three single-digit scores, the batsman had averaged 78.53 in this match at the end of the third day. Never in the last 100 Test matches, dating back two and a half years, has the average exceeded 60. It’s the kind of surface that makes results far less likely than records, and some of those could still follow.