England’s historic series win from Wood

The all-rounder led a flamboyant counter-attack and teamed up with the more dogged Shakeel to bring Pakistan within 65 runs of victory. And then Ben Stokes got another ace up his sleeve. Minutes before the lunch break on the fourth day in Multan. Mark Wood resorted to bowling short to set batsmen despite bringing in the new ball. And within five balls, he had bounced both set batsmen, paving the way for England’s historic series-win.

The fate of Pakistan depended on the fate of Mohammad Nawaz

For the third time within two months, Pakistan’s fortunes in the game depended on the fortunes of Mohammad Nawaz. Saud Shakeel was chasing a half-century overnight, but it was Nawaz who was once again turning this lopsided Test match on its head.

Pakistan did not give up after the demoralizing double blow and cruised to within 26 runs of victory after lunch but Wood’s 4 for 65 blamed them for their third consecutive defeat at home in Tests. A run they had last gone through. The victory in 1959 also meant that England had won the same number of Tests in this series. As they had won in all their previous tours of Pakistan.

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Pakistan cleverly kept Jack Leach out of the game

The hosts started the day on 157 runs with six wickets in hand. Shakeel was going to be the anchor around whom the rest of the chase was going to revolve. It was England who dealt the first strike of the day as the opening act with Joe Root clicked. There was slow spin on offer and Root managed to take a dip and turn enough to take an edge off Faheem Ashraf on his way to first slip.

Nawaz, another left-hander, as Pakistan cleverly kept Jack Leach out of the game. This meant that Root had an extended bowl while the fast bowlers swung from the other end. It soon became clear that Nawaz was going to extract the bulk of this target as he bravely opted to square off the off-spinner. He hit another boundary off Anderson towards third man and Stokes was forced to make a change.

So, after 50 minutes in the opening session, Wood and Leach came on. Nawaz dispatched the left-arm spinner for a four, while Shakeel had a close shave as he missed an attempted sweep and the ball just bounced over the stumps and into the fence for another four.