Spinners give Pakistan series win over England

Captain Alastair Cook did offer resistance, completing his 46th half century in tests, with a stand of 49 runs for the seventh wicket with Adil Rashid, who was out shortly before the lunch break. The first Test was drawn and Pakistan won the second.

Malik, due to quit Test cricket after this match, who provided Pakistan early breakthroughs, trapping Moeen Ali (22) leg-before and then bowled Ian Bell (nought) in successive overs.

By then, their advantage was 247 – leaving England to contemplate trying to far exceed their highest run chase to date in Asia, 209 against Bangladesh in Dhaka six years ago. “But when you lose four wickets in the first 20 minutes and your middle order gets blown away, you are not going to win the game”. South Africa is leading the table with way ahead of Pakistan in point table.

England took the second new ball right after lunch and Broad made it count when he trapped Misbah plumb in front in the 86th over.

Misbah joined Hafeez at the crease after James Anderson removed Rahat early and the duo added 77 for the unbroken fifth wicket to swell Pakistan’s lead.

They saw off the threat of Anderson and Stuart Broad and scored nearly at will against England’s disappointing spin attack.

Hafeez gifted his wicket to Moeen (1-72) after hitting three sixes and 15 fours in an impressive innings and Asad Shafiq (46) was dropped by Anderson before Broad bowled him with a beauty.

“I am happy that I have contributed to the kind of total we wanted to achieve”, said Hafeez.

Sarfraz produced a confident knock before left-armer Samit Patel managed to spin one past his stumps to hit the wicket.

Mohammad Hafeez (151) continued to take a ruthless advantage of his reprieve on two the previous afternoon, when he was given out caught behind but had the decision controversially overturned on DRS. This is his 118th match. England were 120 for 7 after the morning session, needing 164 more for an unlikely victory.

With this series win over England, Pakistan earned 2977 points after playing 28 matches, reaches at 106 rating, sharing with Australia in terms of ratings, and jumps to the second position in worldwide Cricket Council Test rankings.