Pakistan spinners take all 20 England wickets to level Test series

Pakistan beat England by 152 runs to level three-game series on Day Four of second Test match in Multan.

Pakistan sealed their first home Test win in nearly four years as they beat England by 152 runs in the second match in Multan on Friday, levelling the three-game series and vanquishing last week’s crushing defeat.

The victory also ended an 11-Test winless streak in home matches stretching back to February 2021, and was secured before lunch on the fourth day as England lost eight wickets in the session to be bowled out for 144 while in pursuit of 297.

Pakistan off-spinner Noman Ali broke both his best bowling figures, with 8-46 in the second innings, including the last seven to fall, which completed match figures of 11-47. It was also the first time that Pakistan spinners picked up all 20 wickets to fall in a match, with Sajid Khan claiming 9-204.

Should Khan, who was bowling from the other end when the last wicket fell, have taken one more wicket, it would have been the first time in the history of Test cricket that two bowlers claimed 10-wicket hauls in the same match. It was also Pakistan’s first Test victory, home or away, in nearly four years and came only a month after the humiliating 2-0 home series defeat by Bangladesh.

“The first one is always special and it’s come after some hard and rough times,” Pakistan captain Shan Masood, whose position was under growing pressure, reflected on his first Test win.

Pakistan’s omission of Babar and Shaheen rewarded?

The humbling defeat by an innings and 47 runs for Pakistan only a week ago in Multan led to four changes being made for this match. The controversial omission of star batter, Babar Azam, and key seam bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi were most notable as the hosts elected to deploy seven spinners on the used surface.

“We tried going for green seamer (surfaces) against Bangladesh and we were a bit off. The only other Test we played in Multan was two years ago and it offered some spin so we tried something different,” Masood said of the decision to start this match on the exact same track only three days after the end of the first game of the series ended – also regarded as a first as far back as any can find in the history books.

“For the boys to step in after last week, stick together to pick up 20 wickets was the most satisfying thing,” Masood added. “You have to applaud the group – they have been hungry, you can’t doubt the effort or commitment.”

England resumed the day on 36-2, but quickly lost Ollie Pope to a caught-and-bowled by Sajid for 22 runs. It was the first of four wickets to fall for 51 runs, which left the tourists in a perilous position that even captain Ben Stokes’s 37 – the highest score of the innings – could not reverse.

England not disgruntled by Pakistan ‘quirk’

Scoring at a run-a-ball rate, Stokes came dancing down the track to Noman and swung his bat only for it to fly out of his hands to midwicket. Pakistan wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan had ample time to collect the ball and whip off the bail with the England captain well out of the crease.

“It was going to be a massive task for us because of how much was going on out there on the wicket,” Stokes told Sky Sports. “It was incredibly tough conditions to try to eke out that target – you always felt there was a ball with your name on it.

“It was always going to be favour whoever won the toss on a ‘Day Six’ pitch before a ball was bowled. We lost a lot of wickets at the end of the Day Two and that’s where I felt the pitch started to react more.”

England coach Brendon McCullum echoed Stokes’s thoughts that the tourists were always up against it having lost the toss on a surface that was always going to assist the spinners, but said there were no hard feelings about the tactic to play once again on the same surface.

“I don’t mind the quirk or it. When you play at home you have to have home advantage. I don’t have a problem with it at all,” McCullum told Sky Sports. “I’ve always found in Pakistan that the game quickens up as the game goes on. This one was quick from the off. It’s always better when there is a battle between bat and ball.”

The decisive final Test begins in Rawalpindi on October 24. Whether Pakistan recall two of their biggest names remains to be seen but there is life in Pakistan cricket once more, and that can only be a good thing for the global game, not just this series.