Multan
\nNoman Ali took eight wickets as Pakistan\u2019s leading spinners guided the team to a 152-run win over England in the second Test in Multan on Friday, leveling the three-match series at 1-1.
\nChasing 297 for victory on a turning track at the Multan Cricket Stadium, England were all out for 144 in the fourth day\u2019s morning session.
\nSkipper Ben Stokes was the top scorer for England with 37 but their frontline batters struggled against the turning ball.
\nLeft-arm spinner Noman was pick of the Pakistan bowlers claiming 8-46.
\nNoman and player of the match Sajid Khan, who claimed seven wickets in the first innings, shared all 20 England wickets in a terrific display of spin bowling.
\nIt ended Pakistan\u2019s winless run on home soil where they had not won a Test match since February 2021.
\n\u201cI think the first one\u2019s always special, and it\u2019s come after some hard times, some rough times,\u201d Shan Masood said after his first Test win as Pakistan captain.
\n\u201cNoman and Sajid coming in for their first games \u2014 it\u2019s never easy, and they seemed like two seasoned campaigners coming in and doing their job in the second innings.
\n\u201cWe didn\u2019t need a third bowler, so that just speaks volumes for them.\u201d
\nSoon after putting an end to a winless home run, congratulations poured in from President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for the team.
\nIn his congratulatory message for the Men in Green, Zardari praised the team\u2019s spinners, noting that they \u201cplayed an important role in winning this match\u201d. \u201cI hope that this series of excellent performances will continue in the future\u201d, he said. Meanwhile, taking to X, Shehbaz lauded the team for ending a winless streak at home.
\n\u201cWe are back,\u201d said the prime minister in his post on X.
\n\u201cWell done, Team Pakistan, for winning the first home Test after a long haul with a historic win against England,\u201d he added. \u201cSpectacular performances by Sajid Khan wickets & Noman Ali wickets\u201d.
\nPakistan were already in the ascendancy when England resumed on 36-2 needing an extraordinary batting effort to get anywhere near the target.
\nVice captain Ollie Pope (22) fell in the second over of the day, giving off-spinner Sajid Khan a return catch before left-arm spinner Noman ran amok.
\nNoman dealt the tourists a body blow when he trapped Joe Root lbw for 18, a decision the batter reviewed but could not get overturned. Harry Brook (16) fell to Noman in a similar fashion and England slumped to 88-6 when Jamie Smith was sent packing.
\nStokes has played some match-defining knocks in his illustrious career and England badly needed a similar innings from him. The captain, scoring at a run-a-ball rate, came dancing down the track against Noman and swung his bat only for it to fly out of his hands to midwicket. Pakistan wicketkeeper Mohammad Rizwan had all the time in the world to collect the ball and whip off the bail with Stokes well out of the crease. \u201cWhen you get extreme conditions like that, you\u2019ve got to find a way to negate that spin, which I think we managed to do in some good parts,\u201d Stokes said.
\n\u201c\u2026 we would have liked to have gone on, especially myself and a couple of the guys who got starts, we might even be able to get closer, if not win the game.\u201d The third and final Test begins in Rawalpindi on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Multan Noman Ali took eight wickets as Pakistan\u2019s leading spinners guided the team to a 152-run win over England in the second Test in Multan on Friday, leveling the three-match series at 1-1. Chasing 297 for victory on a turning track at the Multan Cricket Stadium, England were all out for 144 in the fourth …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":71829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71822"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71822\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71832,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71822\/revisions\/71832"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}