as captain upon winning the toss began routinely in the summer of 2022 choosing to chase, something which goes against the orthodoxy in Test cricket but is the orthodoxy in limited-overs cricket. Fast scoring rates On December 1, 2022 England reached a total of 506-4 at the end of first day’s play in a Test match against Pakistan. These runs came in 75 overs at a run rate of 6.75, an unprecedented rate record in Test cricket. Had England faced the full 90 overs of a days play at that run rate they would have passed 600. The previous record for the most runs on day one of a match was 494 set by Australia against South Africa 112 years previously in 1910. This innings also included England’s highest ever total in the first session of a Test (174), Zak Crawley scoring the most runs in the first over of an innings ever by an England player (14), Crawley and Ben Duckett scoring the fastest ever England century opening stand (83 balls), Crawley and Duckett scoring the fastest opening double-century partnership in Test cricket history (181 balls), Harry Brook scoring England’s third fastest century of all time (80 balls), and Crawley (86 balls) scoring the fastest ever by an England opener and the fifth fastest overall. The desire to score quickly has been noted to have had an impact on the batting of Stokes himself who on occasion was “one batsman who has, perhaps, taken things too far on occasion… and fallen cheaply.” On 16 February, 2023 fast scoring rates by the top order allowed England to declare their innings on the first day of a day/night Test match at the Bay Oval in Mount Maunganui on a tour of New Zealand, when the evening conditions were perceived to be a better time to be bowling rather than batting as a side. It was the second earliest declaration in the first innings of a match in the history of Test cricket, and the speed of the scoring rate by the England batters allowed the declaration to be made to suit the conditions with Michael Atherton describing the “boldness” of the declaration as evidence of Stokes “reputation as a captain unwilling to let the game stagnate or drift”. England batters have also demonstrated innovation when facing Test match bowlers, such as Joe Root playing reverse-ramp shots against pace bowling, and batting