Pakistan beat England by one wicket at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Sunday night, chasing 242 from 154 for nine — an unbeaten 113 from Shadab Khan and an 89-run last-wicket stand that ESPNcricinfo records as the highest ever in a successful ODI run-chase. Pakistan are through to Saturday’s final. Sri Lanka, who were not playing, now need one win from their last two matches to join them.
Pakistan finished on 243 for nine in 47.1 overs, with 17 balls to spare, after England had made 241. Shadab, who came in at the fall of the sixth wicket and was still there at the end, was named player of the match.
Where the table stands now
| Team | M | W | L | Pts | NRR | Still to play | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pakistan | 3 | 3 | 0 | 6 | +0.949 | vs SL, 27 Oct |
| 2 | Sri Lanka | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | −0.348 | vs PAK 27 Oct, vs ENG 29 Oct |
| 3 | England | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | −0.733 | vs SL, 29 Oct |
Sri Lanka’s two points come from the chase of 430 against England on 22 October, the second-highest pursuit in ODI history, set against the 37-run defeat by Pakistan in the opener.
What Sunday’s result does to Sri Lanka’s position. Each side plays four round-robin matches and the top two contest the final at Lahore on 31 October. Pakistan’s third win confirms their place — ESPNcricinfo states the victory “books their place in the Tri-Series final.”
England now have no points from three matches and one fixture left, against Sri Lanka on 29 October, which caps them at two points. Sri Lanka already have two, with Pakistan on 27 October and England on 29 October to come. One Sri Lankan win from those two matches therefore puts them beyond England’s reach and into the final. If Sri Lanka lose both, the two sides finish level on two points and net run rate separates them — Sri Lanka currently hold a 0.385 advantage there.
That arithmetic is this desk’s own reading of the published table and schedule; no source states it. ESPNcricinfo puts the same conclusion qualitatively, describing England as “rock-bottom in the Tri-Series standings after three increasingly traumatic losses” and saying “it’s going to take a miracle to now scrape into the final.”
Correction
An earlier version of this article, written before the match, said a Pakistan win “would eliminate England.” That was wrong. England are not mathematically out: beating Sri Lanka on 29 October would take them level with Sri Lanka on two points, leaving net run rate to decide the second place. The error was in this desk’s own arithmetic, not in any source.
How the match was framed beforehand
The tournament moved to Lahore for the first time, ESPNcricinfo’s preview recorded, after three matches at Rawalpindi. Radio Pakistan’s fixture notice gave the same venue and start time, as relayed by PakTribune.
The pre-match picture
Pakistan went in having won both their matches and, in ESPNcricinfo’s phrase, eyeing the final. The second of those wins — by 87 runs over England at Rawalpindi on 20 October, with Arafat Minhas scoring 59 and taking six for 40 — is the one match of this series this desk has not covered.
Captain Shaheen Afridi was unmoved beforehand by what England had done to Sri Lanka’s bowlers three days earlier. “We’re not interested in the number of runs the other side scored in the previous game, whether it’s 400 or 500,” he said. “What we’re focused on is how to restrict a team to 250, and our bowling is capable enough to do it.”
Both halves of that came off almost to the letter. England were held to 241, and Afridi — one wicket short of the mark before play — became the eighth Pakistan fast bowler to reach 150 ODI wickets with the fifth ball of the match.
England, whose form read LLWLW against Pakistan’s WWWLW, were expected by both ESPNcricinfo and the Daily Mirror to recall Adil Rashid after he was left out of the match in which they conceded 430. They did not. Rashid was omitted a second time — Brook publicly defended the decision — and England instead handed an ODI debut to the seamer Henry Crocombe, who took a wicket and conceded 57 from 6.1 overs.
Tom Banton had made half-centuries in both tri-series games without going on; he fell for 4 in the first over. Pakistan’s Saim Ayub had 15 runs and no wicket for 61 in two matches, and made 6 here.
What England had to fix
The Daily Mirror’s preview, filed on Sunday morning, put the bowling at the centre of England’s problem and singled out Sam Curran, who conceded 103 runs against Sri Lanka.
ESPNcricinfo’s scorecard confirms the figure and shows how far out it sits. Curran’s 9-0-103-2 was the only century conceded by any bowler in the match, and his economy rate of 11.44 was comfortably England’s worst:
| England bowler | O | M | R | W | Econ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gus Atkinson | 7 | 0 | 57 | 0 | 8.14 |
| Josh Tongue | 8.5 | 1 | 79 | 3 | 8.94 |
| Jamie Overton | 10 | 0 | 77 | 1 | 7.70 |
| Liam Dawson | 10 | 0 | 71 | 1 | 7.10 |
| Sam Curran | 9 | 0 | 103 | 2 | 11.44 |
| Will Jacks | 5 | 0 | 41 | 0 | 8.20 |
Six bowlers for 428 runs, with two more coming in byes and leg-byes to make Sri Lanka’s 430. The Daily Mirror also tied the defeat to Rashid’s omission, reporting that the absence “raised questions about England’s team selection” and that England were expected to bring him back — the same expectation ESPNcricinfo’s preview carried. Neither expectation was borne out.
One point of difference: the Daily Mirror described the Sri Lanka result as a “stunning run defeat”. England lost that match by two wickets with one ball to spare, having failed to defend 429.
On the bowling, England answered the criticism. Curran went for 32 from eight, Dawson for 30 from ten, and Pakistan were nine down with 88 still to get. The defeat came from somewhere else entirely.
Lahore offers bigger boundaries than Rawalpindi, though the ground has been batting-friendly in recent years. A hailstorm on the eve of the match sent groundstaff scrambling to cover the square; the covers came off and training went ahead. England had won two of their eight previous matches at the Gaddafi, in 1987 and 2005 — and lost this one. Pakistan played in pink, the match dedicated to breast cancer awareness.
England’s innings: Afridi’s burst, then Duckett’s century
Pakistan won their first toss of the series and elected to field. It took Shaheen Shah Afridi five balls to justify it: he had Tom Banton caught at short cover by Arafat Minhas in the first over, and in doing so became the eighth Pakistan fast bowler to reach 150 ODI wickets — the milestone he had been one short of before play.
He then had Joe Root caught at backward point by Saim Ayub, and Harry Brook was run out for 1 attempting a risky second, beaten by a throw from Razaullah. Jordan Cox was caught at first slip. England were 52 for four inside ten overs.
Ben Duckett and Sam Curran then added 92 for the fifth wicket. Curran made 42 before Afridi, returning for a second spell, had him caught at deep third off a short ball. Duckett went on to a century off 104 balls and finished with 105 from 111, with ten fours and two sixes, before Arafat Minhas — held back until the 29th over — had him caught at mid-off.
England were all out for 241 in 46.4 overs, with Gus Atkinson 36 not out from 28 balls after a 40-run stand for the last wicket.
| England bowling | O | M | R | W | Econ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shaheen Shah Afridi | 8.4 | 0 | 46 | 4 | 5.30 |
| Razaullah | 8 | 0 | 38 | 2 | 4.75 |
| Arafat Minhas | 8 | 0 | 26 | 2 | 3.25 |
| Haris Rauf | 8 | 0 | 55 | 1 | 6.87 |
| Shadab Khan | 7 | 0 | 31 | 0 | 4.42 |
| Salman Agha | 5 | 0 | 26 | 0 | 5.20 |
| Saim Ayub | 2 | 0 | 18 | 0 | 9.00 |
241 is 188 fewer than England managed against Sri Lanka three days earlier — a defensible total rather than an overwhelming one.
England’s bowlers delivered, and still lost
England’s attack, the subject of this report’s original framing, produced the spell its critics had been waiting for. Pakistan lost three wickets inside seven overs — Fakhar Zaman caught at slip, Saim Ayub steered to slip to give Henry Crocombe a wicket on ODI debut, and Babar Azam bowled through the gate by Atkinson for 10.
Sam Curran, whose 9-0-103-2 against Sri Lanka prompted the scrutiny, this time went 8-0-32-0. Liam Dawson was the most economical bowler on either side at 10-1-30-2, and Jamie Overton took three for 43 from his ten, removing Saad Baig, Arafat Minhas and Afridi.
| Pakistan bowling faced | O | M | R | W | Econ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liam Dawson | 10 | 1 | 30 | 2 | 3.00 |
| Sam Curran | 8 | 0 | 32 | 0 | 4.00 |
| Jamie Overton | 10 | 0 | 43 | 3 | 4.30 |
| Gus Atkinson | 9 | 0 | 62 | 2 | 6.88 |
| Henry Crocombe | 6.1 | 0 | 57 | 1 | 9.24 |
At 154 for nine in the 34th over, with Razaullah bowled by Will Jacks, Pakistan needed 88 more and the Gaddafi Stadium had largely emptied.
The last wicket: 89 runs, and a review that turned the match
Shadab Khan and Haris Rauf then put on 89 for the tenth wicket — which ESPNcricinfo records as a record for a successful ODI run-chase. Shadab took almost all of the strike, finding a boundary or two an over and turning the strike over for the last ball where he could. ESPNcricinfo’s report notes that England “were one ball away for 80 balls.”
The decisive moment came with Shadab on 97. He missed a straight full toss from Atkinson that hit him on the front pad and was given out lbw; he reviewed, and UltraEdge found the ball had brushed the inside edge on its way through. The decision was overturned.
Shadab finished 113 not out from 96 balls, with 13 fours and five sixes — his maiden ODI century. Rauf made 7 not out from 19 balls, occupying the crease for 70 minutes. The winning runs came off Rauf’s bat, driven back past Crocombe, who got a hand to the ball but could not hold it.
| Pakistan | R | B | 4s | 6s | SR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shadab Khan | 113* | 96 | 13 | 5 | 117.70 |
| Saad Baig † | 32 | 22 | 7 | 0 | 145.45 |
| Salman Agha | 26 | 49 | 2 | 0 | 53.06 |
| Hasan Nawaz | 15 | 33 | 0 | 0 | 45.45 |
| Fakhar Zaman | 10 | 18 | 1 | 0 | 55.55 |
| Babar Azam | 10 | 12 | 2 | 0 | 83.33 |
| Razaullah | 8 | 15 | 0 | 1 | 53.33 |
| Haris Rauf | 7* | 19 | 1 | 0 | 36.84 |
| Saim Ayub | 6 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 50.00 |
| Shaheen Shah Afridi (c) | 4 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 80.00 |
| Arafat Minhas | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 33.33 |
Extras of 11 took Pakistan to 243. Both sides, as it turned out, were rescued by their last pair: England added 40 for the tenth wicket through Atkinson, Pakistan 89 through Shadab.
Sourcing note
The result, the records and the quoted phrases above are from ESPNcricinfo’s match report. The batting, bowling and fall-of-wicket figures were checked independently against the same outlet’s full scorecard for this match, which carries no extractable publication date and is therefore not listed as a separate source. Pakistan’s innings sums exactly: 232 from the bat plus 11 extras for 243.
Ada Derana also filed on the result, under the headline “Shadab Khan’s century guides Pakistan to thrilling ODI win over England,” but its pages have returned a CloudFront block to this desk for 43 consecutive days, so no publication date could be extracted and it is named here rather than cited. Update, Monday 26 October: the Daily Mirror has since filed on the result, under the headline “Shadab’s heroics seal thrilling Pakistan win,” and is now cited above. When this report was first published on Sunday night — about four hours after the finish — neither the Daily Mirror’s breaking-news listing nor Hiru News carried the result; both had been checked directly. Hiru still had not filed when this update was written.
