England Seal Clean Sweep Over Pakistan as Root Steadies the Ship

Edgbaston has seen some strange mornings. This one began with a whisper of panic.

England, needing only 130 to beat Pakistan and wrap up a 3-0 series win, walked out under soft Birmingham cloud seemingly on a victory stroll. Within six balls, that stroll had turned into a stumble. A serious one.

Ben Duckett, first ball, nicked a beauty from Muhammad Abbas and was gone for a golden duck. Emilio Gay lasted four deliveries before Abbas speared one into his shin, plumb in front. Two wickets, two runs, two openers back in the pavilion. The prospect of a routine chase had evaporated in a single over.

For a few minutes, Edgbaston held its breath.

Root reprieved, Cox unflustered

At 2-2, with Pakistan snarling and the ball jagging, England’s serene summer farewell suddenly looked fragile. It could have been worse. It almost was.

On 23, Joe Root dragged a loose drive from Mohammad Ali back onto his own stumps, a captain’s error at the worst possible time. As Pakistan celebrated, the umpire’s arm went out. No-ball. Ali had overstepped, by a fraction, and Root walked back to the crease, expression blank, heart rate anything but.

The let-off changed everything.

Root did not exactly glide from that point. He edged between static slips on 34 off a furious Abbas, another moment that drained belief from the visitors. While England’s captain rode his luck, the man at the other end barely needed any.

Jordan Cox, playing with the calm of a veteran rather than a 24-year-old still staking his claim, shut the door on Pakistan’s last surge. Compact, disciplined, picking off anything loose, he looked the more secure of the two as he moved methodically to 59 not out.

Together, Root and Cox stitched an unbroken stand of 128 that dragged England from jeopardy to comfort, then to inevitability. Root finished unbeaten on 62, steering the winning runs just before lunch, the scoreboard reading 130-2 and the series sealed in an eight-wicket win.

For Root, restored to the captaincy after Ben Stokes’ retirement in June, it was a fitting end to a turbulent summer. For Cox, it felt like the start of something.

A summer of chaos, a finish of control

Strip away the final margin and this was no procession. England have swept Pakistan 3-0, but the story of the past month is one of disorder turned into direction.

Less than two months ago, they had neither a permanent captain nor a head coach. They began the summer stumbling, with only two wins in their previous 10 Tests. They end it with three on the bounce, a dressing room that suddenly looks settled, and a new man in charge about to walk through the door.

Stephen Fleming arrives in the coming days to take over as head coach, his in-tray already full. The winter schedule is unforgiving: South Africa, Bangladesh, Australia. Tougher attacks, harsher conditions, fewer second chances.

This series, for all the 3-0 gloss, has not answered every question. It has, at least, reminded England how to win.

Pakistan finally fight back

For most of this tour, Pakistan have been out of their depth and out of sorts.

They were behind from the first ball of the first Test at Headingley, when Ollie Robinson trapped Azan Awais lbw and never really let them up for air. They flirted with abandoning the second Test after a Sky interview with the sons of Imran Khan caused uproar back home. They responded to defeat at Lord’s by sacking head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed, installing Mike Hesson, and axing seven players from the squad. It looked chaotic because it was.

Edgbaston threatened to be the nadir. Pakistan were bowled out for 133 in the first innings, a total that now glares like a confession. From 0-2 in their second dig, they were staring at the humiliation of a two-day defeat.

Then, finally, they swung back.

The top order, led by captain Shan Masood’s composed 95, found a method. Babar Azam added 76 with familiar elegance, Awais 59 with grit. The platform allowed one of the new faces, Razaullah, to rip the script to pieces.

Razaullah’s arrival

Razaullah was one of the seven late additions to the squad, nominally a pace bowler who had already made a statement by removing Root in his first over in Test cricket earlier in the series. On Friday evening, he turned from promising seamer into full-blown disruptor.

His 81 was thrilling, reckless in the best way, and utterly transformative. He dismantled England’s plans and their composure in a single session, launching a furious counter-attack that dragged Pakistan from irrelevance into contention. Fielders scattered to the rope, bowlers lost their lengths, Root’s field placings frayed.

England’s tactics disintegrated under the assault. Pakistan surged to 449, a lead that suddenly made 130 feel a lot bigger than it looked on paper.

For a team that had spent two and a half Tests drifting, it was a jolt of electricity. For Pakistan’s selectors, it was a glimpse of a possible future. In a tour full of missteps, they may have unearthed a star.

England wobble, then hold

That is why the opening over on Saturday mattered so much. Pakistan had finally found some fight, and England had to show they could absorb it.

They did, but not without exposing a fault line.

The openers remain a concern. Duckett’s summer is a strange mix of peaks and troughs: he owns England’s only century of the season, yet he has not passed 20 in five innings against Pakistan and averages 23 since the start of the Ashes. His edge to slip for nought here, beaten on the outside by Abbas’ relentless accuracy, felt like another entry in a worrying trend.

Gay, in his first Test summer, has shown promise with three half-centuries, but his numbers are equally modest, his average now dipping below 25. Being pinned lbw by Abbas, then wasting a review in visible frustration, will not help his case with Fleming watching from afar and Jacob Bethell due back from injury. Gay’s immediate place looks vulnerable.

At 2-2, with the Edgbaston crowd tense and the dressing room suddenly quiet, this was the kind of moment that tells a new regime what it really has. Cox’s response, more than Root’s survival, will stick in the selectors’ minds.

The Essex right-hander left well, drove with judgment, and never allowed the situation to rush him. By the time Pakistan spilled that edge from Root and the ball trickled between the slips, the contest had effectively gone. The hope drained from the field, the body language sagged, and England began to knock off the target with increasing ease.

A shambolic tour, one bright spark

For Pakistan, the past 48 hours have at least spared them from complete embarrassment. Razaullah’s pyrotechnics, Masood’s leadership with the bat, and a snarling new-ball burst from Abbas and Ali gave them a foothold in a series that had threatened to be remembered only for off-field turmoil and on-field capitulation.

Yet the numbers do not lie. They lost 3-0. They were behind from the first ball of the first Test to the last stroke of Root’s bat at Edgbaston. They will fly home with more questions than answers, and with the fallout from mid-series sackings and squad overhauls still to come.

If there is a silver lining, it is Razaullah. A bowler who can hurry top-order batters and a lower-order hitter who can change games in a session is gold dust in modern Test cricket. Pakistan have endured a terrible tour. They may have found a player worth building around.

England, meanwhile, move on quickly. The whites go back in the cupboard; the white-ball kit comes out for a series against Sri Lanka starting in Southampton on Tuesday, with Brendon McCullum returning to the limited-overs helm and Kevin Pietersen joining the coaching staff.

The red-ball side will reconvene in winter with a new coach, a settled captain, and a clean sweep in the bank. The openers are under scrutiny, the opposition will get stronger, and the margins will tighten.

But for now, England walk away from Edgbaston with the only thing that really matters at the end of a chaotic summer: a series won, a wobble survived, and a sense that, after months of uncertainty, they finally know which way they’re heading.