Lahore : Ah vow ! What a match it was at Qadafi Stadium Lahore on Sunday evening. England was about to win as Pakistan’s top and middle orders had left the crease without any sizeable scoring. At one stage in the game , Pakistan were 154 for 9 and any one ball could leave Pakistan hard and dry against England at Qadafi stadium Lahore .
But as its commonly said about cricket that its a game of unpredictability and anything can happen at any stage. This proved true in Pakistan -England ODI played at Qadafi stadium on Sunday.
Pakistan won the toss and opted to field first . Captain Shaheen Shah Afridi ‘s decision of putting England to bat turned fruitful for Pakistan. England first lost its four top batters in the first power play. However , middle order of England side helped its team make a reasonable score of 241 runs for Pakistan.
Since the pitch was playing unpredictably , it was a good score to stop the opposition for a win. This had gone its way as Pakistan started to lose wickets early. Pakistan’s top order failed again. Its both openers , Fakhar Zaman and Saim Ayub got out very early. It put pressure on the other Pakistan ‘s players. At least six Pakistani players got out without adding any reasonable score against England . Saim Ayub , an opener for Pakistan for long , has been a complete failure in the on-going tri series . He could not enter into double- digit in all three matches played so far in tri series.
.Salman Ali Agha and Hasan Nawaz made some efforts to play a good inning and take Pakistan to a winning score , but Hasan’s desperate effort to play a big hit when his individual score was only 15 showed him a way to the pavelian. Salman also got out soon after Hasan Nawaz . At this stage , the game seemed twisting in favour of England.
Seeing poor performance of national team, the crowd started to leave the stadium when Pakistan had lost 9 wickets and its score was 154. Then Shadab Khan took charge with Haris to fight out against England without taking into account that they were the last pair out on the middle. Shadab Khan started to play most of the balls on the crease . He had a plan to keep hitting big hits to get fours and sixes whenever the opportunity was there . He continued to keep Rauf on the non striking end so that he remains least exposed to England bowling. His this plan worked well . Shadab Khan was hitting four and six in almost every over. This plan helped Pakistan keep run rate at low level and keep adding scores to plug in the gap between balls and required run rate.
Shadab was on 97 when a new drama came in to make the game unforgettable. Shadab Khan faced a ball from England bowler . It looked as Shadab had lost his wicket in LBW and it was all over for Pakistan . Shadab Khan started to walk off the crease , feeling he is done . England side jumped up in joy for winning the game . Shadab Khan had thrown his bat away in desperation. Pakistani fans had gone silent as they did not want to see Shadab Khan out after bringing Pakistan close to victory after playing an incredible inning. Then Shadab was seen signing for review . He probably was asked by Rauf to take the review . Shadab Khan did took review , but his body language showed he was done . Then third empire started the review and it showed that Shadab’s decision of out was incorrect. This brought Shadab Khan back with a new hope to win the match for Pakistan. Soon Shadab Khan completed his century , setting a new record for the last wicket . He made history by playing the most incredible inning of 113 runs off 96 balls and snatch win from England for Pakistan