Mark Wood fired England to series-winning glory with a devastating day four performance full of pace, heart and wickets.
Wood’s second innings 4-65 sealed a successive Test win in Pakistan for the first time for an England team as they triumphed by 26 runs to take an unassailable 2-0 lead with one to play. Ollie Robinson had the honour of finishing off the game when he had Mohammad Ali caught behind 50 minutes after lunch to complete yet another entertaining and thrilling Test win for this England era.
But it was the fastest bowler on either side who made all the difference as he blew the game open just before the break and then helped see it over the line to make it eight wins out of nine for the McStokes era and third series win out of three.
Any questions over whether or not Bazball can travel have been emphatically answered with this second successive overseas win, even if it looked like Pakistan might chase down their target with ease at one stage when they were 290-5 in the morning session.
But just like any great captain before him, Ben Stokes has got both the bowling weapons and the characters who can step up when he needs them most. It doesn’t matter what style of Test cricket you want to play, you need bowlers to win you matches, and a captain needs bowlers that he can rely on.
That is exactly what Stokes has and his bond with Wood grew even stronger in Multan as his long term friend and Durham team-mate delivered for him at just the right time. Wood came to the fore with his second spell of the day, where he prevented the impressive Pakistan duo Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Nawaz simply cruising to victory.
The pair added an unblemished 80 together after Joe Root had initially removed Faheem Ashraf for just 10, well caught by Zak Crawley at slip. The second new ball was supposed to be the charm but for 11.4 overs it had only brought joy to the home side as they collected their runs in an unhurried and unfussy way, sprinkling the odd shot of brilliance in between.
At one stage Nawaz walked down the pitch at Robinson and drove him splendidly to the extra cover boundary for four, the first boundary he had conceded in the match. England had tried their five main bowlers in various combinations but nothing was really working, until Stokes asked Wood to play the sledgehammer role once more.
Bowling fast and short at the batters, trying to make them uncomfortable, is hard, unforgiving work, and Stokes knows it, because he has done it many times himself before. Interestingly Stokes had not bowled a ball himself in the match, even though the England camp repeatedly declared him fit enough to do so.
So it was his great friend Wood who got on with the job, and it worked as Nawaz got too far inside the line of one and gloved the ball into the waiting hands of Pope who didn’t even have to dive to collect it. Stokes’ reaction said it all as he screamed in joy and ran straight towards Wood and gave him a bear hug and wouldn’t let go.
This was a huge moment, but Pakistan still had Shakeel at the other end, batting beautifully, and seemingly in his own little world unaffected by the pressure of the situation. So when Wood pulled off the same trick a second time with Pope taking a far harder catch, England were almost there.
They needed the decision to go their way though, with Pope appearing to have his gloves split apart by the ball as he sprawled on the ground to his right. The question was whether the ball touched the floor as he made the catch.
After a soft signal of ‘out’ on the field, the decision went up to third umpire Joel Wilson who must have been looking at a replay all to himself describing Pope’s fingers as ‘under the ball’ when they plainly weren’t. In fact the gap between Pope’s gloves almost certainly suggested that the ball did indeed touch the ground, but the part-time stumper got the nod that mattered.
From then on, despite a bit of happy hitting from Abrar Ahmed, it was a matter of when England would finish things off not if, as Wood, James Anderson and Robinson claimed the final three wickets. A fitting end to both their and England’s efforts.
