Pakistan 344 want 36 races to overcome England 267 and 112 (Root 33, Noman 6-42, Sajid 4-69)
Pakistan are on the cusp of their first home-field win since 2021, the closest they have come to brushing aside England for 112, leaving them a nominal chase of 36 for victory in this third and final Test in Rawalpindi.
As it was in the first innings, and indeed Multan’s victorious second Test, Noman Ali and Sajid Khan walked away with the spoils, bagging all 10 wickets between them. It was Noman’s turn to place the match ball with 6 for 42, a sixth five-wicket haul, the generation’s 4 for 69 Sajid recorded a second match of 10 wickets from his 10 – look at the closest occupation to 6 of 128 at time one. .
The pair went hand in hand at the end of the innings, basking in the glory of instigating England’s second third crack in which all seven wickets fell for just 46, and indeed their performances became the line in their head. Since being drafted into the team closest to the breakers who took a 1-0 government, they have controlled 39 wickets between the two: Noman’s left-arm spin took 20 at 13.85, Sajid generation breakers managed 19 from 9:01 p.m.
And yet things began serenely in abundance for England. Of course, they started Saturday 53 behind 24 by three. But in Root and Brook, they had two batsmen capable of eliminating that oddity, and then some.
When Brook began the 13th by dangling Sajid for consecutive fours (first on insurance, then at half-price), Pakistan’s most pessimistic fans might have been wondering if the Yorkshire pair were about to embark on something else. association to tilt the parties. After all, it was these two who combined for 454 in the first Multan Test.
Then again, that was before Sajid and Noman came into the line. And closer to the former adjusting his sequence to keep Brook fair, the latter followed a slow delivery with a much quicker one that once found its way into the gloves of Mohammad Rizwan. Pakistan’s government fell 11 short, but the first domino was toppled. Others duly adopted.
Stokes’ problems with turn lingered, inexplicably noting a direct source from Noman, anticipating a turn from the wicket that never came. Jamie Smith’s delivery to Sajid was almost as wicked, delivered from off stump with a wild swing that belied the sensitivity he had shown with a charge of 89 in the first innings.
It was just four balls closer to Smith’s dismissal that England advanced, and any hopes they had of extending that during a breakthrough ended when Root was caught by a Noman loser for a check of 8. The easiest dive on a pitch for pulling the right-hander forward from the other side of the wicket, before simply making a great turn – it was an offering the 38-year-old had served a couple of times, but only Root was excellent at cutting. TO
Sajid stepped in to cut the tail, hitting Gus Atkinson before hitting Rehan Ahmed’s leg stump again for his second 10-wicket haul of the competition. And he looked to have made it a second five-pointer in the tournament when Shoaib Bashir took LBW in the sweep.
A cursory DRS check was again in favor of the Deny.11, with the hit on the house coming off the stump. The reprieve only brought two runs remaining, when Noman made Leach miss the charge, firing at a big advancing left-hander, clearly stumped through Rizwan.
Vithushan Ehantharajah is a working essayist at ESPNcricinfo
