Pakistan endured another batting failure in the ongoing Test series as England secured the series on expected lines with a massive 194-run win at Lord’s. England set Pakistan a daunting target of 388 on the fourth morning and immediately struck thrice very early in the run chase. Even though Pakistan briefly recovered, the resistance didn’t last long as they were bowled out for 194.
Pakistan didn’t take too long to wrap up the English innings on the fourth morning. Dan Lawrence, the half-centurion, started off in fine fashion with a boundary through point and Ollie Robinson pulled Mohammad Ali for his first boundary. But a nip-backer from Mohammad Abbas knocked the top of Lawrence’s offstump soon after to give the visitors a vital early breakthrough. Abbas then got one to move away after pitching to take Robinson’s outside edge that gave him a deserved five-fer. Josh Tongue added a couple of boundaries but a run out brought a swift end to the innings with England failing to drag their lead past the 400-run mark.
However, there were enough signs as early as the fifth over of the Pakistan innings that this target would be more than enough. Robinson first trapped Azan Awais legbefore, coming up with a cracking delivery to breach Abdullah Shafique’s defence and clatter the offstump, getting rid of him for a duck in the same over. Things went from bad to worse real quick when Jofra Archer struck two overs later to bag the big fish. A clumsy half leave from Babar to a short delivery from Archer saw him get into a mess that eventually resulted in Jordan Cox completing a simple catch in the slip cordon.
Saud Shakeel and Shan Masood then went through a testing period of play before lunch. They were both beaten on a few occasions, managed to fetch some boundaries and more importantly, survived through to the session break. In the process, England also ended up losing two reviews in that period as they attempted to wrap things up quickly. However, Shakeel batted in positive fashion after the break and kept England at bay for a decent amount of time alongside Masood. Shakeel brought up a fifty off just 54 balls and shortly after, there was a rain interruption that kept the players indoors for almost 40 minutes.
Post resumption, it was once again Robinson who made the breakthrough as he ended Masood’s stubborn resistance. Mohammad Rizwan was the next to depart as he got trapped lbw by Robinson while attempting a slog. With half the side back in the pavilion and Imam-ul-Haq not fit enough to bat, the contest was pretty much done and dusted at this point. Ali Usman hung in for 44 deliveries before dragging one from Archer onto his stumps and that prompted a reaction at the other end from Shakeel who smashed two sixes in an over from Tongue in his bid to get to a century. Agonisingly, that approach brought his downfall as he found the fielder in the deep when he was three short of his ton as Tongue mopped up the tail to put Pakistan out of their misery.
Brief scores: England 290 (Jamie Smith 61; Mohammad Abbas 4-73) & 208 (Dan Lawrence 54; Mohammad Abbas 5-57) beat Pakistan 110 (Azan Awais 46; Ollie Robinson 4-11) & 194 (Saud Shakeel 97; Ollie Robinson 4-24) by 194 runs
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