PAK vs ENG 2024/25, PAK vs ENG 3rd Test Match Report, October 24 – 28, 2024

Pakistan 73 for 3 (Masood 16*, Shakeel 16*) route In England 267 (Smith 89, Duckett 52, Sajid 6-128) by 194 runs

Heaters, industrial-sized fans and racks worked their magic. But as Rawalpindi’s famous batting track produced 13 wickets on the opening day of the third and final Test, it was England who benefited, first to 267 and then doing what it took to reduce the Pakistanis to 73 for 3 at the end.

As expected after sharing all 20 English wickets in the second Test in Multan to tie the series, the spin duo did the lion’s share of the bowling, dropping all but 11 in 68.2 overs, including the first 42 unchanged. For only the second time in Test history – and the first time since 1882 – no pace bowler was used in the first innings of a match.

England started well enough, with a comfortable 50 in 12 overs. After a good start ahead of Zak Crawley – playing in his 50th Test – he fell to Noman with a reverse drive to backward point. Ollie Pope opened another difficult effort of 3 for 14 – trapped in front playing a difficult game – before Duckett (wearing one on his toes), Joe Root (trapped in front) and Harry Brook (leg stump tied who is trying to sweep) are defeated by the delivery. that did not take off as expected.

That England had something to work with, 110 for 5 at lunch, was a credit to Duckett. Although somewhat dangerous, it was difficult to mark it as a problem area, and in raising the score to 242 for 8 at tea, Smith and Atkinson ensured that England had a firm footing.

By the time Sajid was finally released from his first good spell of 21 overs, he had dismissed Stokes, caught at slip, 11 balls into the second session, for his fourth wicket. He finally came back to complete Noman’s salvo after 23 overs.

Atkinson joined Smith and started an All-Surrey stand, serving as a straight man in the latter’s destruction, even if those roles only appeared at the turn of the century. After a good start for both of them – Smith’s fifty produced a total of 94 runs – the last 39 runs that took their partnership to three figures took just 21 deliveries.

It was a charge inspired by Atkinson, who hit three fours in the last four balls of the 56th over, against leg-spinner Zahid Mahmood who was looking to England as a bowler to guide. That said, Smith followed up with successive boundaries off Sajid, though the second one – his third six – pierced the hands of Saud Shakeel over long-on.

If Shakeel had been sent back to the fence rather than a few feet ahead, he would have ended the keeper’s innings with 54. Alas, Sajid felt the pain of that miss, and was taken for two more boundaries by Smith in his next over. – the first one is smeared over midwicket for a six, the second is brilliantly smeared down the ground to bounce one four.

The second took the seventh wicket tally to 103 off just 159 deliveries. And though it would only reach 107 as Noman came back to catch his own ball as Atkinson returned the ball to the field, Smith continued, blasting two sixes down Zahid as he completed his second Test. . A third six at the end of the over was avoided thanks to exemplary work from Sajid, who caught the boundary twice, but had to throw the ball back into play for the second time to block the boundary.

Alas, Smith will fail, Zahid who has won a heave towards the top taken to complete a wonderful knock and polish the figures of the legspinner, who will read 1 in 44 overs. It was Pakistan’s first wicket in 28 for a bowler other than Sajid and Noman, who combined for 20 in the second Test at Multan.

Leach and Rehan Ahmed, back in the squad for the first time since February, resumed the break but played just 32 overs, Sajid taking them both out of the crease for his fifth and sixth wickets of the match, and 15th. three innings since he recalled at Multan.

Naturally, Stokes opened with Leach, although he gave Atkinson the new ball at the other end to see the first pace, even if it was only for two spells. The second leg bye in this blast took Abdullah Shafique and Saim Ayub through their opening 15 overs. But reaching 35, Bashir bowled a single to Shafique’s front pad for the first of three wickets for Pakistan in just 11 overs. he runs.

An attempt to reduce the hatches to stumps allowed England to press. Leach pocketed Ayub, headed to Root at midwicket – between three catchers on the leg side – before Atkinson went back alone and benefited from a short stroke to clear the off-stump of Kamran Ghulan, who was three for marking his debut . in Multan last week in the century.

Masood will continue on day two with Shakeel, who was wrongly dismissed in the second over when he was adjudged to have been caught by Stokes after Smith bent his captain’s ball at first as he tried to drive it down leg. It was the second of two glaring mistakes by umpire Sharfuddoula to be overruled by DRS, having earlier pointed the finger at Ayub at the start of the seventh over for the same mistake of being caught in the cordon.