Pakistan's Thrilling Fightback at Edgbaston
Pakistan walked into the third day at Edgbaston looking like a team clinging on to the series. They walked off having produced their most commanding, most entertaining performance of the tour, turning a position of vulnerability into a 130-run target for England and a contest crackling with tension.
By stumps, the scoreboard read 449 all out – Pakistan’s highest total of the series – but the numbers barely captured the shift in mood. This was a day built on grit at the top, class through the middle, and pure chaos at the end.
Steady hands in the morning
Azan Awais and Shan Masood, the overnight pair, began with the kind of care that told you they knew the stakes. Jofra Archer went short early, pounding the pitch, probing for a mistake. Gus Atkinson backed him up with tight lines. The ball did just enough, but not quite enough, and Pakistan’s left-handed duo refused to blink.
Josh Tongue, though, offered the release. Anything loose disappeared, and slowly the deficit began to shrink. On either side of the morning drinks break, both Awais and Masood raised their half-centuries, milestones greeted with a noticeable easing of shoulders in the dressing-room balcony.
Then, just as Pakistan seemed to have settled into a long haul, spin arrived and the day jolted sideways.
Lawrence breaks through, Root pounces
Dan Lawrence came on for his first bowl of the Test and struck almost immediately. Awais, glancing a ball drifting down the leg side, brushed it faintly to the keeper. The on-field decision was not out, the close catchers barely appealed. Joe Root did not share their doubt. He reviewed swiftly, the faint edge showed up, and Pakistan’s opening act ended abruptly.
Masood, though, refused to let the innings drift. He found a heavyweight ally in Babar Azam, the Pakistan captain who had endured a wretched series to this point, without a score in double figures. The two senior batters went to work, and for the first time in the series Pakistan’s top order looked not just secure, but assertive.
Their 89-run stand stitched the innings together. Masood drove crisply, Babar’s timing returned, and England’s seamers were forced into longer, more searching spells. The pressure shifted, over by over.
Lawrence, again, broke it. Stationed at gully, he flung himself low to his left to pull off a sharp, one-handed catch that cut Masood down five short of a century. It was a gut-punch for Pakistan’s captain in waiting, but the platform remained.
Short-ball plan unsettles Babar
Babar looked increasingly at ease, his footwork cleaner, his judgment sharper. That was England’s cue to change tack. The short-ball plan came out in full: fielders posted, bouncers climbing, angles varied.
For a while, Babar handled it. Archer hurled a hostile spell that he survived, swaying and swatting when needed. The trap finally snapped shut against Tongue, who pushed one down the leg side. Babar, well set and threatening a century of his own, tickled it and departed, another major innings cut short by England’s targeted hostility.
Seven overs later, the ploy claimed another victim. Saud Shakeel, also trying to fend a short ball, gloved to short leg. England had their method, and Pakistan were wobbling again.
Collapse threatens to undo the work
The final session began with Pakistan just 23 runs behind and five wickets intact – a position of relative strength. Within a short, chaotic burst, that security vanished. England sliced through the middle and lower order, removing Shakeel, Ghazi Ghori and Mohammad Imran Randhawa before Pakistan could even clear the deficit.
From a position of control, Pakistan suddenly stood on 8 down, still behind, the innings teetering. The narrative of the tour – promise followed by collapse – loomed over Edgbaston once more.
Then came Razaullah.
Razaullah ignites Edgbaston
With only two wickets in hand, the 21-year-old debutant chose aggression as his answer. It was not a cameo. It was a detonation.
He launched nine sixes – the most ever by a debutant – in a 63-ball 81 that flipped the match on its head. The carnage began quickly. Atkinson bore the brunt first, Razaullah carting him three times over the ropes in a single over, each blow heavier than the last.
There was a brief lull, a moment when it seemed England might drag him back into line. Then he stepped out to Archer and sent him soaring over long-off to raise a half-century that felt like a statement of intent as much as a personal landmark.
At the other end, Mohammad Abbaas did exactly what Pakistan needed: he stayed. His 42 was the quiet heartbeat that allowed Razaullah to swing freely. As the partnership grew, Razaullah’s strokes grew bolder, the field spread, and England’s bowlers began to look bereft of answers.
The ninth-wicket stand surged to 121, each run dragging Pakistan from mere survival into a position of strength. By the time Abbaas fell to Tongue, Pakistan’s lead had swelled to 119. The deficit that had loomed so large earlier in the day had been not just erased, but emphatically reversed.
Razaullah added 10 more runs to the total before Lawrence, fittingly, had the final say, stumping him to claim his second wicket of the innings and close Pakistan’s effort at 449.
England will begin the fourth day needing 130 to win, chasing not just a modest target, but the momentum of a Pakistan side that finally found its voice on this tour.
