It was a run chase that began in alarming fashion for England as Mohammad Abbas hitched up his strides, glided into the crease, and sent Ben Duckett and Emilio Gay trudging back to the Edgbaston pavilion to bookend a magical first over.
Pakistan’s players suddenly believed, their supporters inside Edgbaston likewise. After Razaullah’s firework display with the bat the previous evening, it was hard not to wonder whether their penchant for the unexpected – that seemingly innate ability to flip the script from nowhere – was rearing its head once more.
But in the end, albeit with a couple more heart-in-mouth moments, England had enough about them to reel in their target of 130 runs to complete an eight-wicket victory and their first series clean sweep for two years. Joe Root, 62 not out, and Jordan Cox unbeaten on 59, reeled in the target by 1.07pm.
Root had walked out at the end of the first over with the scorecard in disarray at two for two. Abbas had nicked off Duckett first ball to continue a rather sorry Test match for England’s opener, and then pinned Emilio Gay lbw for a duck that dented some of the credit built up by the left-hander’s 60 in the first innings.
Alongside Cox, whose start to Test cricket has been an assured one, Root immediately got down to his usual business, batted on leg stump in an attempt to minimise the threat of lbw, and the scorecard soon started to tick over. On a pitch with no demons by this stage, all it needed was a couple of calm heads.
Razaullah was unable to roll over the momentum from his incendiary 81 with the bat after being handed the new ball – an early hand injury did not help – while no frontline spinner meant Abbas with the wicketkeeper stood up was the only way that Babar Azam could make things claustrophobic. That said, there were two more chances created along the way and neither came to fruition.
The first came when Root was on 20 and an expansive cover-drive cannoned into his leg stump. Mohammad Ali was haring off in celebration, only to turn around and see the umpire’s arm outstretched for a front-foot no-ball – his 17th such offence in this series but the first to rob him of a wicket.
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England would have been 36 for three and Root’s response was emphatic, drilling Ali through the covers for four to rub salt in the wounds. None was needed for those of Abbas when he then saw an edge off Root’s bat fly between first and second slip on 34 without either man going for it – he was fuming regardless.
Thereafter the pressure eased, with this thinned-out day-four crowd essentially watched a 90-minute net, a couple of tidy half-centuries, and the winning runs coming off a mis-field. Root has resumed the England captaincy with a pretty cruisy 3-0 series victory while knowing that tougher challenges are to come.