Pak vs Eng
\nSajid Khan dismisses Ben Duckett for 12 and Noman Ali removes Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope in the space of five runs
\nRawalpindi
\nSpinners Sajid Khan and Noman Ali left England reeling at 24-3 after Saud Shakeel\u2019s fighting hundred put Pakistan in control of the series-deciding third Test in Rawalpindi on Friday.
\nEngland came in looking to erase a deficit of 77 but had no answers for the Pakistan spinners on a turning pitch.
\nSajid dismissed Ben Duckett for 12 and Noman Ali removed Zak Crawley (two) and Ollie Pope (one) in the space of five runs.
\nWhen bad light ended the second day\u2019s play with five overs remaining, Joe Root and Harry Brook were at the crease on five and three respectively.
\nEngland still need 53 runs to avoid an innings defeat with seven wickets in hand and three days left to play.
\nThe series is tied at 1-1 after England won the first Test by an innings and 47 runs while Pakistan took the second by 152 runs, both in Multan.
\nOn another day dominated by spin, Shakeel\u2019s brilliant 134 was the highlight, pulling Pakistan within touching distance of a first home Test series win since they defeated South Africa in February 2021.
\nShakeel anchored Pakistan\u2019s innings, lifting them from a precarious 177-7 to 344 all out.
\n\u201cWe had an idea that this pitch will help spinners so with that in mind I prepared myself,\u201d said Shakeel, admitting it was one of his best knocks.
\nThe left-hander held Pakistan\u2019s innings together with a gritty knock spread over 322 minutes and 223 balls, hitting just five boundaries.
\n\u201cA hundred is a hundred and it\u2019s the best feeling and now we are in the best stage of the match.\u201d
\nBut leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed, who was the pick of the England bowlers, said his team had plenty of fight left.
\n\u201cI think we are still quite positive with so much batting to come so we are still very positive in the changing room come tomorrow,\u201d he said.
\nAhmed took 4-66 while off-spinner Shoaib Bashir finished with 3-129.
\nDefiant Shakeel
\nThe 29-year-old Shakeel defied England with an eighth wicket stand of 88 alongside Noman who made 45 before falling in the final over ahead of the tea break to spinner Bashir.
\nShakeel added another 72 for the ninth wicket with Sajid who scored an unbeaten career-best 48.
\nShakeel was finally caught off a miscued pull off pacer Gus Atkinson while Ahmed dismissed the last man Zahid Mahmood for nought.
\nThe visitors looked to be in control when young spinner Ahmed bagged three quick wickets to leave Pakistan teetering at the end of the first session.
\nEngland were eyeing a lead after Ahmed\u2019s burst left Pakistan on 187-7 at lunch but the Shakeel-Noman stand turned those expectations into frustration.
\nShakeel batted with composure and reached his fourth Test hundred with a single off Rehan in a resistance-packed innings.
\nNoman \u2013 surviving a leg-before decision on review and a dropped catch off Root \u2013 assisted Shakeel admirably, hitting a six and two fours as the duo helped Pakistan add 80 in the second session.
\nRehan sent Mohammad Rizwan (25), Salman Agha (one) and Aamer Jamal (14) back to the pavilion and threatened to derail Pakistan.
\nEngland\u2019s frontline spinners Jack Leach and Bashir could not extract the same sharp turn from the pitch as rival Sajid Khan, who took 6-128 on Thursday. Pakistan resumed the day at 73-3 in search of a sizeable lead to press for a series win. But Shakeel was the only top-order batter able to build a meaningful innings after reaching double figures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pak vs Eng Sajid Khan dismisses Ben Duckett for 12 and Noman Ali removes Zak Crawley, Ollie Pope in the space of five runs Rawalpindi Spinners Sajid Khan and Noman Ali left England reeling at 24-3 after Saud Shakeel\u2019s fighting hundred put Pakistan in control of the series-deciding third Test in Rawalpindi on Friday. England …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":72072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72088","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\/72088","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=72088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72100,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72088\/revisions\/72100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}