If Pakistan have been paying attention, they will know exactly what to do when Joe Root or Harry Brook walk out to bat in Wednesday’s first Test at Headingley. Babar Azam should instruct wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan to stand up to the stumps – and ask his seamers to swallow their prideIn an age of sometimes breathless Test cricket, the tactic has demanded pause for thought. Used to good effect by Australia’s Alex Carey during the Ashes, it was reprised by Tom Blundell during New Zealand’s 2–1 victory over England earlier this summer. Brook couldn’t get past 58, while Root averaged 28, his lowest in a series since the tour of Pakistan in late 2022.But if his performance back then in batsman-friendly conditions felt an aberration, his drop-off against the canny New Zealanders was all part of a plan that is becoming part of Test cricket’s fabric.In 2025, only two per cent of balls bowled by seamers in Test cricket came with the wicketkeeper standing up, with Rob Key, England’s managing director, insisting before the Ashes: ‘This 75mph, keeper up, dobbing it on a length – we know that doesn’t work in Test cricket, wherever you are.’Then came Michael Neser and Scott Boland, backed up by the lightning-quick Carey. And if neither were as slow as 75mph, Key’s wisdom has aged like sour milk. So far in 2026, that percentage has risen above 14, as fielding captains cotton on to the benefits of keeping batsmen chained to the crease.And against a team such as England, who under Brendon McCullum enjoyed using their feet to the quicks, it has proved a masterstroke – one that looks tailor-made for Pakistan attack leader Mohammad Abbas, who operates at a pace (around 80mph) which makes the tactic feasible, and has the control to pull it off. England batsmen struggled when Australia wicketkeeper Alex Carey stood up to the stumps in last winter’s Ashes Down Under And it was a similar story in New Zealand’s tour of England this summer, with Jordan Cox among those to fall to Matt Henry with Tom Blundell applying the pressureFew understand its value better than the former England wicketkeeper Jack Russell, who used it to claustrophobic effect for Gloucestershire’s powerful white-ball side at the turn of the millennium.‘It started with Craig White being a pinch hitter at Yorkshire, and we thought, “OK, we need to stop him doing that”,’ he tells Daily Mail Sport in between painting canvases for a new exhibition of his artwork starting this week at London’s Chris Beetles gallery. ‘So as soon as he would open the innings, I would zoom up to the stumps.‘There are so many benefits. Obviously keeping a batsman in his crease is the main reason. But it can affect things like lbws and nicks to the slips, because the batsman can’t get forward to cover movement so easily. We always had a first slip, and found we got a lot of wickets that way.‘The bowlers liked it too: they could concentrate on their length, because the batters weren’t able to mess with it too much. So it made the bowlers happy, as long as their egos weren’t too big and they didn’t mind the keeper standing up. And being that close, you could get in the batsman’s minds a bit – or a lot.’Russell is enough of a cricket historian to know that Godfrey Evans was standing up to Alec Bedser long before he stumped a startled Dean Jones down the leg side off Gladstone Small at Sydney during the 1990-91 Ashes.But, understandably, he never dwelled too long on potential remedies for batsmen. ‘Don’t get hit on the leg,’ he says. ‘And if the pitch is reasonably flat, you can probably err on moving out to the ball and getting a straight bat on it.’ Pakistan seamer Mohammad Abbas has the control required to pull off the tactic at Headingley this week Abbas, who operates at around 80mph, takes the wicket of West Indies’ Jomel Warrican with Mohammad Rizwan stood up to the stumps earlier this yearThat first piece of advice feels especially germane right now. Root has fallen lbw in six of his last nine Test innings, and Brook in three of his last seven. New Zealand’s Matt Henry, operating in the low-80mphs, was all over both at the Oval.England, by contrast, have used the tactic only sporadically, possibly because their main bowlers – Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson and Josh Tongue – are all a bit quicker. But wicketkeeper Jamie Smith and England fielding coach Sarah Taylor are aware of the trend.‘It’s a really important skill,’ says Smith. ‘We have worked on it a little bit so far, but it’s trying to find the right balance. You can’t really stand up to them in the warm-ups, or I’m not sure how many hands or fingers I’d have left.’Injury concerns aside, why don’t more teams do it? ‘Well, you’ve got to be brave and a bit nutty,’ says Russell, who says the pace of the bowler didn’t matter to him: at Gloucestershire, he was even known to stand up to West Indies quick Courtney Walsh. ‘You’ve got to have the keepers who are prepared to do it.’England can’t say they haven’t been warned.