Razaullah’s nine sixes leave England needing 130 at Edgbaston

By Jack Shaw · Edgbaston, Birmingham · Published: 19:50 BST

• Razaullah, Pakistan’s 21-year-old debutant batting at No 9, smashed 81 on day three of the third Test, reaching his fifty from 43 balls.
• His nine sixes equalled Ben Stokes’ record for the most maximums in a Test innings in England.
• Pakistan were bowled out for 449, a lead of 129, leaving England needing 130 to win on Saturday.

Razaullah has dragged a dead rubber back to life. Pakistan, 2-0 down in the series and beaten inside three days at Lord’s, looked set to lose again on Friday evening at Edgbaston — until their debutant No 9 launched an assault that tied Ben Stokes’ record for sixes in a Test innings on these shores and handed England a chase of 130 on day four.

How Pakistan turned a three-day defeat into a fourth morning

Pakistan resumed on 55-2, still 268 behind, having been rolled for 133 in the first innings. This time they dug in. Shan Masood and Azan Awais put on 125 for the third wicket before Awais tickled Dan Lawrence’s off-spin down the leg side for 59. Masood then added 89 with his captain Babar Azam, only to be denied a hundred on 95 by a spectacular one-handed catch from Lawrence at gully off Gus Atkinson. Babar made a classy 76 before Josh Tongue’s short-ball plan accounted for him.

That looked like the end of it. Instead Razaullah, coming in with Pakistan still behind, put on 121 with Mohammad Abbas, who struck two sixes in his own 42, and was finally stumped off Lawrence with the last ball of the day. Pakistan 449; England 453 all out in reply to that first-innings 133; England need 130. For the full rolling timeline of the series, follow the coverage at ReadCricket.

The expert angle: Razaullah exposed the one hole in England’s attack

This was not a freak hour of slogging. It was the first time in the series that England’s post-Stokes bowling plan has been properly interrogated, and it did not hold up. Since Ben Stokes’ mid-summer retirement, Joe Root has leaned on a four-pronged pace attack — a line-up that has invited comparisons with 2005, and which has spent this series steaming through Pakistan on pitches where the Dukes ball did the thinking for them. Edgbaston on day three offered no such help.

Take the seam movement away and the structural issue is obvious: England have no frontline spinner. Root had to fall back on umbrella fields, bouncer barrages and the part-time off-spin of Dan Lawrence, who ended up with the day’s two most important wickets and the stumping that closed it. Ollie Robinson, the most economical bowler on show, could not add to his overnight two. When a Test-debut No 9 clears the ropes nine times against you, the problem is not the batter’s bravado — it is that nobody in your attack can slow the game down.

With the Ashes on the horizon, that is the question England will carry out of Birmingham regardless of what happens to those 130 runs on Saturday. A four-seam attack is a thrilling thing on a green Thursday. It is a much harder thing to captain on a flat Friday afternoon with the Hollies Stand in full voice and a 21-year-old swinging at everything.

Pakistan, in the last act of a tour that has been close to shambolic, at least found something to point at. So: does England’s pace-only blueprint survive contact with a batter who simply refuses to respect it — or is a spinner non-negotiable before the winter? Read more on the state of this England side in our piece on Kevin Pietersen’s shock return to the ECB fold.