KARACHI, 19 Dec: Legspinner Rehan Ahmed became the youngest men\u2019s test cricketer to claim a five-wicket haul on his debut and put England on the brink of a historic 3-0 sweep in its first test tour to Pakistan in 17 years.
\nPakistan\u2019s batters crumbled for 216 in the second innings of the third and final test as the 18-year-old Ahmed grabbed 5-48 and Jack Leach (3-72) claimed all three of his wickets in the space of six deliveries on Day 3 to leave England a modest target of 167 runs.
\nBen Duckett (50 not out) and Zak Crawley (41) motored England to 112-2 by stumps with their aggressive \u201cBazball\u201d brand of batting \u2014 named after their coach Brendon McCullum.
\nEngland needs a further 55 runs to register its second successive win inside four days following its thrilling 26-run victory at Multan last week. England won the first test by 74 runs in dimming light on the last day on a flat wicket in Rawalpindi.
\n\u201cI just try to enjoy it as much as I could,\u201d said Ahmed, who became the youngest England cricketer to make his debut at the age of 18 years, 126 days. \u201cThis feels like the happiest day of my life … I still don\u2019t think it has sunk in yet, but yes I am very, very grateful.\u201d
\nCrawley and Duckett plundered 87 runs off 69 balls before mystery spinner Abrar Ahmed grabbed two late wickets. Crawley was adjudged leg before wicket while attempting a sweep and Rehan Ahmed (10), promoted up the order, smacked two boundaries before he swiped and got clean bowled.
\nHarry Brook\u2019s third successive century had given England a 50-run first innings lead when it replied with 354 after dismissing Pakistan for 304, with Ahmed and Leach sharing six wickets between them.
\nPakistan, staring at its first ever 3-0 whitewash at home, lost the last seven wickets for 52 runs in the second innings as Ahmed stifled the middle-order with his sharp googlies and legspin.
\nCaptain Babar Azam (54) hit his third half century in the last four innings and Saud Shakeel (53) made his fourth fifty in his debut series before Ahmed left the lower order clueless on a wicket which has a variable bounce and slow turn from Day 1.
\nBabar and Shakeel had rebuilt Pakistan\u2019s hopes with a 110-run stand before both fell late in the second session to Ahmed.
\n\u201cI have let down my team and couldn\u2019t convert fifties into big hundreds for four times in the series,\u201d Shakeel said. \u201cWe lost back to back wickets twice in a day and we accept our mistakes. We should have set them a much stiffer target.\u201d
\nBabar became the fourth test player to complete 1,000 runs this year, but played an overambitious pull against Ahmed\u2019s short ball soon after completing his half century and Ollie Pope held a sharp catch at short mid-wicket.
\nAhmed then picked up the wickets of Mohammad Rizwan (7) and Shakeel in successive overs to seize complete control as Pakistan reached 177-6 at tea before Ahmed quickly wrapped up the tail.
\nShakeel followed up his three previous half centuries in his maiden test series with another defiant fifty before he top-edged a sweep against Ahmed and was caught by Leach at square leg.
\nBabar and Shakeel had defied spin and pace for 2 hours, 45 minutes after Leach\u2019s triple strike had reduced Pakistan to 54-3.
\nPakistan was ahead by just three runs when the top order crashed against Leach on a wicket where spinners have dominated.
\nFormer captain Azhar Ali had a disappointing end to his 97-test career as the 37-year-old fell without scoring in his last innings when Leach knocked back his off stump with a sharp turning delivery.
\nEngland players applauded and shook hands with Azhar before he took the final guard with his wife and two sons among a sparse crowd at the National Stadium.
\nBut Azhar lasted for only four balls against his former Somerset teammate Leach before the England players again shook hands with him for one last time.
\nAzhar was accorded a guard of honor by his teammates on the edge of the boundary line as he slowly walked back into the dressing room.
\nResuming on 21-0, Shan Masood (24) started promisingly, smashing Joe Root for three boundaries and a six before the offspinner was taken out of the attack after two overs.
\nAbdullah Shafique wiped off the 50-run deficit with a pulled boundary against Mark Wood\u2019s 140 kph bouncer before Leach struck thrice without conceding a run.
\nThe left-handed Masood was bowled playing an extravagant reverse sweep as the ball clipped the bottom edge of his bat before hitting leg stump.
\nFour balls later, Leach sent Azhar packing and then pinned Shafique (26) plumb lbw on the front foot to leave Pakistan on the mat. (PTI)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KARACHI, 19 Dec: Legspinner Rehan Ahmed became the youngest men\u2019s test cricketer to claim a five-wicket haul on his debut and put England on the brink of a historic 3-0 sweep in its first test tour to Pakistan in 17 years. Pakistan\u2019s batters crumbled for 216 in the second innings of the third and final […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-207260","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207260\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}