Pakistan fail to tap into underdog magic as Headingley braces for men’s Test hiatus | Taha Hashim

England wrapped up a comfortable victory but their red-ball men’s team will not be back in Leeds for a few years

Harry Brook has sparkled in front of his own. The Yorkshireman ran the chase against Australia at Headingley three years ago and played a strong hand against India last year. On Thursday he was England’s top-scorer but the slightest misjudgment against Ali Usman’s left-arm spin on 91 was costly. He’s still waiting to take the helmet off at home, for Headingley to rise after he’s reached three figures in a Test match. He’ll have to keep waiting a few years.

The ground finds itself without a men’s Test for the next two years, not part of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s allocation for the visit of Pat Cummins’s Australia in 2027. They’ll have to wait until 2031 for that money-spinning fixture. With Old Trafford off the list, too, there won’t be a men’s Ashes Test in the north next summer. Sanjay Patel, Yorkshire’s chief executive, has called the absence of men’s Test cricket over the next two years “devastating” for the club, echoing the sentiments expressed in their most recent annual report and accounts.