Razaullah's Heroics Set Up Tricky Chase for England
Edgbaston arrived on Friday expecting a formality. It left with a live Test match and a new Pakistan cult hero.
England will need 130 runs to win the third Rothesay Test after Pakistan, seemingly dead and buried at 55-2 overnight and still 268 behind, found their fight – and then found Razaullah.
The 21-year-old debutant, listed at number nine and unknown to most inside the ground at the start of the day, walked off to a standing ovation after an outrageous 81 from 63 balls. He hit nine sixes, equalling Ben Stokes’ record for the most in a Test innings in England, and dragged his side from survival mode into outright defiance.
From 133 all out on day one to 449 second time around. From humiliation to something far more respectable. From a dead rubber to a weekend occasion.
England, who replied with 453 in their first innings, remain strong favourites. But they were rattled, and they know it.
Pakistan finally turn up
For two days this series had felt like a mismatch. Pakistan’s batting had been flimsy, their resolve flimsy, their tour bordering on shambolic. On Friday, at last, they played like a proper Test side.
From 55-2, Shan Masood and Azan Awais set the tone. They were patient, disciplined, and stubborn. Their third-wicket stand stretched to 125, Awais compiling a composed 59, particularly strong through the off side, before he glanced Dan Lawrence’s off-spin down the leg side and was caught.
Masood, in what is likely his final Test in the country where he went to school, looked nailed on for a cathartic hundred. He had moved to 95 when Gus Atkinson drew a thick edge and Lawrence, this time at gully, flung himself to his right to pull off a stunning one-handed catch. A brutal way to go, but a high-class innings nonetheless.
Masood’s departure did not stall Pakistan immediately. He had already added 89 with Babar Azam, who unfurled the strokes that have made him one of the modern game’s most watchable batters. Babar’s 76 oozed class, though England’s short-ball plan either side of tea unsettled him. Josh Tongue finally got his man with a bouncer, a dismissal that felt like a turning point.
At that stage, a three-day finish loomed again. Pakistan, 318-8 and still two runs behind, looked set to fold with more than two hours left in the day.
Then came Razaullah.
‘Razball’ rips up the script
What followed did not just change the complexion of the match; it changed the mood of the entire series.
Razaullah, one of seven players drafted into the squad for this Test, had already impressed with the ball in England’s first innings. With the bat, he turned into a force of nature.
He started as a tailender having a swing. He finished as the central act in a spellbinding evening session.
With Muhammad Abbas for company, Razaullah launched into England’s attack. Abbas played his part with 42, including two sixes and a handful of audacious strokes – reverse-sweeping Lawrence, then muscling Ollie Robinson over cow corner – but it was Razaullah who owned the stage.
Atkinson was pummelled into the Edgbaston building site, three times in a single over. Jofra Archer, usually the hunter, found himself the hunted, twice driven high and straight back over his head for six. England’s lines frayed. Their lengths disappeared. Their composure went with them.
The partnership between Razaullah and Abbas surged to 121 for the eighth wicket. The Hollies Stand, subdued for much of the series, finally sounded like Edgbaston in full voice. This was not polite applause; this was a crowd roaring on chaos.
As the light faded, Pakistan’s lower order looked as if it might survive to the close. Abbas eventually nicked Tongue to point, but the tone of the evening did not change.
Razaullah kept swinging, and kept connecting. He equalled Tim Southee’s record for the most sixes by a Test debutant in an innings. He cracked Lawrence for his ninth maximum to draw level with Stokes’ mark in England. He overturned an lbw decision to huge cheers, then, charging again, was finally stumped off Lawrence for 81.
He left to a rapturous ovation, a new star born in the unlikeliest of circumstances.
Pakistan’s 449 meant England’s lead was whittled to just four. What should have been a stroll had turned into a chase with just enough jeopardy to feel real.
England lose their grip
For most of the day, England’s attack did little wrong. Tongue, who finished with 4-42 in the first innings, again hit the pitch hard. The seamers probed when the ball moved, then turned to the short stuff at the right time to discomfort Pakistan’s middle order. The catching, Masood’s dismissal in particular, was sharp.
The problem came when the script flipped.
Once Razaullah and Abbas counter-attacked, England’s plans unravelled. Fields scattered to the boundary as bouncers flew. When the bowlers tried to go fuller and attack the stumps, they either missed their lines or were met with clean hitting and sturdy defence.
Robinson, in the form of his life this series, watched as Root handed the second new ball to Lawrence. It was a curious call, and it did not work immediately. Archer’s frustration grew with every blow that sailed into the stands. Root briefly left the field, leaving his attack to improvise their way through the storm.
By the end, Atkinson was reduced to banging in bouncers with eight men on the rope, a scene that spoke of a side short on ideas. The late wickets – Abbas to Tongue, then Razaullah’s stumping – brought visible relief. England trudged off chastened, their 3-0 clean sweep still on, but their authority dented.
A chase with a pulse
Strip it back, and the equation is simple: England need 130 runs to win a home Test on a surface where they have already made 453. They should get there.
But “should” is not “will”, and Pakistan now have something to cling to.
They have discovered a top order willing to bat time, a captain back in some sort of rhythm, and a fearless debutant who has changed the feel of a series in a single evening. They have a total to defend, a bit of pride restored, and just enough scoreboard pressure to ask questions.
Saturday at Edgbaston was meant to be a footnote. Instead, it carries a sharper edge: can England reassert control, or has Razaullah’s late chaos opened the door to one final twist in a wild, wayward tour?
