Veteran pacer James Anderson termed England’s Rawalpindi Test win over Pakistan as "one of the best" victories of his illustrious career.
The three Lions registered a comprehensive 74-run victory over the hosts on the final day to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match Test series.
On an unresponsive Rawalpindi pitch, it seemed that the Test match will end in a draw but England made a brave declaration in their second innings at 264/7, setting a target of 343 for Pakistan.
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"It's probably one of the best wins I've been involved in, if not the best," Anderson told Sky Sports after the win on Monday (December 5). "On a pitch like that, to play the way we did, to score the runs at the rate we did, we gave ourselves a chance of getting a result and I think we deserved to put ourselves in that position at the end of the game.
"Today, it was an unbelievable effort from everyone. We tried so hard to get the ball reversing and doing something, going off the straight, and we created enough chances to get the win. It was hard, but we knew it was going to be difficult.
"With Ben [Stokes] and Brendon [McCullum], their mantra is that we've got to take wickets and look to take wickets all the time. Even though they [Pakistan] got 500-plus in the first innings, we still felt with that lead that we had, the way we scored, we could set ourselves something to defend.
"Coming into today, we knew it was going to be hard because it's still a good wicket but we managed to get the ball reversing which was absolutely huge. Getting the ball moving through the air makes a massive difference, and we executed our skills brilliantly."
Anderson, 40, was one of the stars with the ball for England in the final innings, claiming four wickets, including the prized scalps of Imam-ul-Haq and Mohammad Rizwan.
However, Anderson praised Ollie Robinson (4-36) and Stokes (1-69) for their burst with the new ball in the final session on Day 4.
"The one thing that stood out for me was the way that Ollie and Ben bowled with the new ball after not having much rest," he said. "They came out with that short-ball theory and it got us a couple of wickets early.
"That set things going and gave us a lot of confidence coming into today. We knew that it was going to be a big push and we dug deep today; we had to dig deep to try and get anything from that wicket."
Hailing Ben Stokes as an “incredible” leader, Anderson said: "He's someone you want to play for. He gives you so much confidence heading out there and the way he just knows what he wants to do.
"He thinks about it a lot: the fields that he sets and the way that he just tells you what to do, basically, is great for us. It's exciting, trying different things as well: exciting fields, different fields, thinking outside the box which you've got to do on pitches like this."
