After Pakistan scored 556 in the first innings, England went in to bat in the last session of day two, making their way to 96-1 in 19 overs by the close of play.

Day three belonged entirely to England as Joe Root and Ben Duckett put on 136 for the third wicket, before Harry Brook joined Root in the middle to help pile on the misery. By the end of the day, they had taken England to 492-3, a deficit of just 64 runs. Root was unbeaten on 176, and Brook on 141.

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They began day four in similar fashion, as a lifeless Multan wicket and the tiring Pakistani bowlers provided little resistance. Both players went past 200, and Root made his way to 262 before he was trapped lbw by Salman Ali Agha with England's score at 703.

Root and Brook had put on 454 for the fourth wicket, the fourth-highest partnership ever in Test cricket and England's highest ever. Brook batted on until he mistimed a sweep shot to hole out at fine leg, for a mammoth 317. Some solid hitting thereafter from Brydon Carse and Chris Woakes took the visitors past 800, only the fourth such score in Test history.

England declared shortly before tea at 823-7, with a lead of 267 runs.

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Full list of highest ever Test totals: Where does England's Multan marathon rank?

Perhaps surprisingly, this is not even England's highest Test total of all time. It is, however, their highest by far since World War II as their two higher scores of 903-7d and 849 came in 1938 and 1930 respectively. England's previous highest post-war score was 710-7d, made against India in Birmingham, 2011.

The highest Test total of all time remains Sri Lanka's mind-boggling score of 952-6d, scored against India in 1997. In that match, India had batted first and declared at 537-8 on day two. In reply, Sri Lanka opted to bat out the rest of the match, starting on day two and going all the way till day five.

Sanath Jayasuriya top-scored with 340 on that occasion, with Roshan Mahanama's 225 and Aravinda de Silva's 126 ending up as supporting acts.

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