Cook what the heck are you doing!

Madness...

Just listened to the England assistant coach explain the decision not to enforce the follow on and even he doesn't seem convinced that they made the right decision. He said while there was a discussion and the decision could have gone either way, the main reason to bat again was because the wicket is still in a great condition and they wanted to post a huge total on the board now because they expect the pitch to deteriorate from here on in.

Make of that what you will...

Good Win !

there was really no need to bat again : but that's an de facto view

Captain Cook's decision is now purely academic 

I agree and I don't think that there was a need to bat again either, and to dismiss Pakistan for such a low total I would have enforced the follow on as I think there confidence would have been shot, no matter if the pitch was in good condition still as the England coach said.

It all turned out OK in the end though so I guess Cook can say he made the right decision and with a victory as impressive as that, who are we to knock him?

lucky cook that it didnt rain for two days.

The forecast was taken into consideration when making the decision. Obviously if there was significant rain forecast, that would have impacted his decision.

Manchester is known as the rainy city, and being brought up and living there I know exactly why as well. Even in the height of summer it pretty much rains at least two or three times a week. Like you say though, the forecast would have been taken into consideration when they was making the decision and I wouldn't have said he was lucky that it didn't rain, it was an informed decision.

Even though it was an informed decision that a lot of us didn't fully understand, and still don't.

Everyone here all understood Cook's reasons for not enforcing the follow-on (namely not wanting to overbowl Anderson and Stokes due to their injuries and avoid facing Yasir in the fourth innings of a potentially spinning Old Trafford pitch) - we just disagreed with them.