England deliver on promise of 'new era' in the most emphatic manner

England promised they'd go for it, that no target would be great enough to curb their new-found attacking mindset. And boy did they deliver on that promise.

Set a challenging 299 in 72 overs to win the second Test at Trent Bridge, and the series, England didn't just reach their target, they obliterated it - courtesy of one of the greatest-ever hundreds in Test cricket.

Jonny Bairstow smashed a simply staggering 136 off 92 balls in the afternoon sunshine in Nottingham, a tea-time 'ham and cheese toastie' apparently the fuel for an astonishing assault that propelled England from 139-4 at the interval - the game very much still in the balance - to victory a mere 16 overs later.

Bairstow hit seven sixes, all of them coming in the evening session, along with 10 of his 14 boundaries, as he threatened to break Gilbert Jessop's 120-year record for the fastest-ever Test century for England. He'd ultimately reach his ninth Test century one ball shy of that mark, doing so in just the 77 deliveries.

The devastating display of hitting had "echoes of the 2005 Ashes game at The Oval, when Brett Lee went at Kevin Pietersen with the Ashes on the line," said Sky Sports' Michael Atherton.

On that occasion, England were 127-5 at lunch on day five, with a lead of 133, needing to bat out the day in order to regain the Ashes for the first time in 18 years. Pietersen, 35 not out at the time, was peppered by short balls in a blistering spell of short-pitched bowling after lunch by Lee and decided to take him on, smashing two sixes and four fours from his next three overs to change the game.

"KP was wondering do I stick or twist and thought, 'I'm going to go for it'. Bairstow was the same," Atherton added. The difference being, Bairstow didn't