|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Ollie Robinson took 4 for 24 to finish with match figures of 8 for 35 from 27 overs as England beat Pakistan by 194 runs at Lord’s with a day to spare, sealing the three-match series 2-0. Saud Shakeel made 97 and was caught in the deep three runs short of the first hundred anyone has managed in the series. Mohammad Abbas took 5 for 57 to reach the Lord’s honours board at last.
London, England: Nobody has scored a century in this series. Saud Shakeel came within three runs of the first, and lost by 194.
Pakistan needed 389 on Sunday, a record target at the ground, and they were three down for 14 inside 7.1 overs. Azan Awais went lbw to Robinson for five, Abdullah Shafique for nought, Babar Azam for six. With Imam-ul-Haq unable to bat after tearing his left calf fielding on the opening day, England needed only nine wickets.
Robinson’s Twenty-Seven Overs
He conceded 35 runs in the match. That is the number that will follow this Test around.
Ollie Robinson bowled 27 overs across the two innings and took eight wickets for 35 — 4 for 11 in the first, 4 for 24 in the second. He now has 16 in the series, and has been named Player of the Match in all three of his Tests this summer, having taken seven at this ground in England’s defeat to New Zealand in June. He is not the quickest bowler in the attack. On a surface offering this much lateral movement, it has not mattered in the slightest.
ALSO READ: Robinson takes four for 11 as England bowl Pakistan out for 110 at Lord’s
Jofra Archer supplied the pace at the other end and took five across the match. Josh Tongue took three in the fourth innings and cleaned up the tail in his usual manner. Gus Atkinson had the thankless afternoon, going wicketless and conceding 24 in four overs after lunch.
Abbas Gets His Name on the Wall
England resumed the fourth morning on 177 for 7, a lead of 357, and lasted long enough to add 31.
Dan Lawrence, who had raced to a fifty off 66 balls in the brief window of play available on a washed-out Saturday, was bowled by a Mohammad Abbas delivery that nipped back and took leg stump. He made 54 from 70. Robinson edged behind for 8 to complete the five-for, and Abbas pointed to the sky.
He is 36, and he had taken four wickets in an innings at Lord’s three times before without ever managing five — twice in 2018, when Pakistan won here by nine wickets, and again in this match’s first innings. This time he finished with 5 for 57 from 22 overs and nine in the match. England were bowled out for 208.
Shakeel Alone
Shan Masood and Shakeel added 97 for the fourth wicket either side of a rain delay, the only period of the afternoon in which Pakistan looked like batting into a fifth day. Masood made 26 from 72 before Robinson trapped him lbw, the decision confirmed on review. Robinson had Mohammad Rizwan lbw for 1 almost immediately, and Rizwan’s own review failed. Pakistan were 115 for 5.
Shakeel simply kept going. He reached fifty from 54 balls and wore blows to the helmet from both Archer and Tongue without visible complaint. Ali Usman gave him 31 for the sixth wicket before Archer bowled him for 16 off an inside edge.
Then Tongue went to a sustained short-ball plan, and Shakeel took him for two sixes and a four in a single over to move to 96. The next big shot was the last one. He top-edged a pull, Harry Brook took the catch in the deep, and the innings — 97 from 122 balls, 13 fours, two sixes — ended one stroke from the honours board. Pakistan were dismissed for 194.
The Series
England have won a Test series for the first time since the tour of New Zealand in late 2024, and Joe Root has begun his second spell as captain with two wins from two. They took 12 World Test Championship points from the match; Pakistan took none.
For the tourists it is a ninth defeat in ten matches away from home. Their highest total of the series before Sunday was 171. Root called Robinson relentless afterwards and made a point of the tail: England’s last-wicket pair turned a modest first innings into a decisive one here, and he suggested that 50 to 80 runs from the lower order is often the whole difference in a Test match.
The third Test begins on Thursday 10 September.
Result: England beat Pakistan by 194 runs. England lead the three-match series 2-0.
England 290 (Jamie Smith 61, Jordan Cox 55, Gus Atkinson 45, Josh Tongue 30*; Mohammad Abbas 4-73) and 208 (Dan Lawrence 54; Mohammad Abbas 5-57)
Pakistan 110 (Azan Awais 46; Ollie Robinson 4-11, Jofra Archer 3-26) and 194/9, Imam-ul-Haq absent injured (Saud Shakeel 97; Robinson 4-24, Tongue 3-46, Archer 2-73)
Player of the Match: Ollie Robinson (England) — 8-35 in the match
Venue: Lord’s, London
