In the end, it was pure carnage. England's record-breaking run chase was achieved with a sensational swagger to the finishing line in the rearranged fifth Test against India at Edgbaston on Tuesday.
Yorkshire duo Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow started the day needing 119 to reach the victory target of 378 looking to build on their magnificent 150-partnership.
Any fears that momentum might be lost and India could launch a fightback and chip away at the remaining seven wickets were soon dispelled.
Root was simply sensational, showing off his full repertoire of attacking strokes and brushing off the world-class Indian attack of Jasprit Bumrah and Co with consummate ease.
His unbeaten 142 off 173 balls was his 28th century in 121 Test matches, 11th since the start of last year and third of the summer. The former captain was top scorer in the series with 737 runs at an average of 105.28.
Player of the match Bairstow, with 404 runs in the series, is currently hitting his own career high and dealt out similar punishment to the opposition bowlers. His undefeated 114 – off 145 balls – was his fourth in five innings and second of the match after a first-innings 106.
Bairstow said: “It’s just about having the enjoyment factor of it, not being afraid of failing, going out and playing in a way that puts the pressure back on the opposition.
“We’re here to win games of cricket, that’s all we want to do. You’re going to lose games along the way if you play in the way in which we are, but hopefully the positive brand that we’re playing is exciting for people to watch."
It was a mere single from Root that secured the seven-wicket win and levelled the delayed series 2-2, handing England their fourth win in a row – all achieved through impressive run chases – under new leadership pair of captain Ben Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum.
England's previous highest successful run chase came in 2019 when they reached a 359-run target in the famous Ashes Test against Australia on the back of Stokes's brilliant unbeaten century.
Root admitted he and Bairstow had felt in “full control” once they had established their match-winning 269-run partnership.
He told Sky Sports: “It was pretty fun doing it. To be honest, throughout the whole summer since that first game, we’ve said whatever they get, we’ll chase it down.
“Ben [Stokes] to us in the group before the toss said, ‘We’re not going to bat first, were going to chase’, so it’s sort of that mentality about how we’re going about things at the minute. Once we got that partnership going, we just felt in full control.
"The feeling in the dressing room at the moment is 'whatever you get, we're going for it and we're going to take it down.'"
Stokes himself added: "The change, you know, you're talking about mindset and everything like that, but when you've got real clarity in what you want to achieve as a team and how you want to play it makes things a lot easier.
"We know what we were going to do – we knew we were always going to go out and try and chase that down from the get go. A great way to explain is that teams are perhaps better than us, but teams won't be braver than us."
UAE v Zimbabwe A
Results
Match 1 – UAE won by 4 wickets
Match 2 – UAE won by 5 wickets
Match 3 – UAE won by 25 runs
Match 4 – UAE won by 77 runs
Fixture
Match 5, Saturday, 9.30am start, ICC Academy, Dubai
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Tearful appearance
Chancellor Rachel Reeves set markets on edge as she appeared visibly distraught in parliament on Wednesday.
Legislative setbacks for the government have blown a new hole in the budgetary calculations at a time when the deficit is stubbornly large and the economy is struggling to grow.
She appeared with Keir Starmer on Thursday and the pair embraced, but he had failed to give her his backing as she cried a day earlier.
A spokesman said her upset demeanour was due to a personal matter.
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Company%20profile
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The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Sole survivors
- Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
- George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
- Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
- Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
THE APPRENTICE
Director: Ali Abbasi
Starring: Sebastian Stan, Maria Bakalova, Jeremy Strong
Rating: 3/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Why are you, you?
Why are you, you?
From this question, a new beginning.
From this question, a new destiny.
For you are a world, and a meeting of worlds.
Our dream is to unite that which has been
separated by history.
To return the many to the one.
A great story unites us all,
beyond colour and creed and gender.
The lightning flash of art
And the music of the heart.
We reflect all cultures, all ways.
We are a twenty first century wonder.
Universal ideals, visions of art and truth.
Now is the turning point of cultures and hopes.
Come with questions, leave with visions.
We are the link between the past and the future.
Here, through art, new possibilities are born. And
new answers are given wings.
Why are you, you?
Because we are mirrors of each other.
Because together we create new worlds.
Together we are more powerful than we know.
We connect, we inspire, we multiply illuminations
with the unique light of art.
Ben Okri,
US households add $601bn of debt in 2019
American households borrowed another $601 billion (Dh2.2bn) in 2019, the largest yearly gain since 2007, just before the global financial crisis, according to February data from the New York Federal Reserve Bank.
Fuelled by rising mortgage debt as homebuyers continued to take advantage of low interest rates, the increase last year brought total household debt to a record high, surpassing the previous peak reached in 2008 just before the market crash, according to the report.
Following the 22nd straight quarter of growth, American household debt swelled to $14.15 trillion by the end of 2019, the New York Fed said in its quarterly report.
In the final three months of the year, new home loans jumped to their highest volume since the fourth quarter of 2005, while credit cards and auto loans also added to the increase.
The bad debt load is taking its toll on some households, and the New York Fed warned that more and more credit card borrowers — particularly young people — were falling behind on their payments.
"Younger borrowers, who are disproportionately likely to have credit cards and student loans as their primary form of debt, struggle more than others with on-time repayment," New York Fed researchers said.
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
MO
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Other must-tries
Tomato and walnut salad
A lesson in simple, seasonal eating. Wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumber, thinly sliced red onion, coriander or parsley leaves, and perhaps some fresh dill are drizzled with a crushed walnut and garlic dressing. Do consider yourself warned: if you eat this salad in Georgia during the summer months, the tomatoes will be so ripe and flavourful that every tomato you eat from that day forth will taste lacklustre in comparison.
Badrijani nigvzit
A delicious vegetarian snack or starter. It consists of thinly sliced, fried then cooled aubergine smothered with a thick and creamy walnut sauce and folded or rolled. Take note, even though it seems like you should be able to pick these morsels up with your hands, they’re not as durable as they look. A knife and fork is the way to go.
Pkhali
This healthy little dish (a nice antidote to the khachapuri) is usually made with steamed then chopped cabbage, spinach, beetroot or green beans, combined with walnuts, garlic and herbs to make a vegetable pâté or paste. The mix is then often formed into rounds, chilled in the fridge and topped with pomegranate seeds before being served.
