Ruthless England's emphatic victory over Pakistan was a job well done after build-up dogged by more tales of drunken antics but there is still much work to do, writes LAWRENCE BOOTH

It has taken them 630 days, but England were finally able to celebrate a series victory shortly after 5.45pm on the fourth evening of this second Test when Josh Tongue induced a thick edge from Mohammad Ali, and Harry Brook swallowed a sharp chance at second slip.

If celebrations were muted, it wasn’t simply because England might have forgotten how they work. Pakistan have provided as much resistance as a soggy napkin, and there is work ahead. Nothing less than a 3–0 whitewash at Edgbaston will suffice, at which point a testing winter trip to South Africa looms into view.

But victory by 194 runs, after being inserted under sepulchral skies on what has become English cricket’s least predictable surface, was a job well done by a team who had begun the game fending off yet more questions about drink. They were as ruthless as they were professional, and it hasn’t been often in the last year we have been able to say that.

In pursuit of a purely notional 389, Pakistan were dismissed for 194, their fourth sub-200 total in succession – and wouldn’t have got even as many as that but for a fighting 97 from Saud Shakeel that put some of his colleagues to shame.

England’s efforts were led once more by Ollie Robinson, who is enjoying a comeback summer like no other, and added four wickets to the four he collected on the second day. Match figures of 27–11–35–8 bore testimony to his metronomic menace, the kind on which the great Australian Glenn McGrath built a long career.

And they took his Test record to 99 wickets at an average of 19.53. The last England bowler to claim more wickets at a better average is the legendary SF Barnes, who won his last cap before the outbreak of the First World War.

For all the off-field nonsense that has dogged him ever since his debut five years ago, Robinson is building a CV that would be the envy of many. Making expert use of the wobble-seam delivery, and on surfaces that accentuate his skills, he has been all but unplayable.

Robinson it was who triggered the carnage in the fifth over, nipping one back into the left-handed opener Azan Awais, then bowling the right-handed Abdullah Shafique with a beauty that pitched on off stump and straightened.

Later, with England held up by a fourth-wicket stand of 97, he overturned an lbw decision to get rid of Shan Masood for 26, before removing Mohammad Rizwan in his next over when Pakistan’s wicketkeeper missed a sickening heave. Of Robinson’s 16 wickets in this series at 7.18 each, eight have been leg-before – a stump-to-stump threat, if ever there was one.

Throw in the Lord’s Test against New Zealand, and his summer’s work amounts to 23 wickets at 8.34. The only pity is that England – the version led by Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes, at least – felt unable to trust him against the New Zealanders on a flat Trent Bridge pitch in punishing temperatures.

Yet he has become the glue of this attack, and the perfect foil to his three quicker colleagues, each of whom topped 90mph on the fourth day. Even factoring in Jofra Archer’s modest assertion on Friday evening that the Lord’s speed gun was faulty, there was no doubting the collective menace.

No vignette captured that better than the brute with which Archer removed Babar Azam, a 91mph bouncer that allowed Pakistan’s captain no time to think, much less to get himself into position for the pull. The ball looped off the bat’s top edge via his helmet and landed gently in the hands of Jordan Cox in the cordon. At 14 for three, there was no way back.

Shakeel fought hard, batting throughout the afternoon session, and later pulling Josh Tongue for six, six and four in five balls to move to 96, only to fall in Tongue’s next over when another pull shot was intercepted at deep backward square by Harry Brook.

Had Shakeel connected only slightly better, he would have become the second Pakistani of the day to etch himself on to the honours boards, after the relentless Mohammad Abbas ended a run of three successive Lord’s four-fors by completing figures five for 57 in the first 40 minutes of the morning.

Instead, Shakeel – utterly crestfallen – had to settle for a standing ovation. And with opener Imam-ul-Haq still unable to bat because of a calf strain, it was left to Tongue to mop up the tail and condemn Pakistan to their 10th defeat in 11 away from home.

Only Atkinson, relegated to second change, failed to take a wicket, though he will bowl worse than this for better reward.

Excitement at the pace quartet has to be tempered by two factors. The pitch offered lavish assistance throughout, and remains a concern for MCC bosses, even as they do their best to seek solutions. And the Pakistan batting, Shakeel aside, was miserable.

But there is a tendency to hammer England when they struggle, and to explain their successes by diminishing their opponents. The evidence of the first two Tests is that Joe Root’s four-pronged seam attack are expertly exploiting helpful conditions against a team with little facility to resist them.

England have been excellent, Pakistan poor. Two things can be true at once. And one truth was undeniable: after all the sideshows, England have a winning Test team again.