Pakistan's Struggles at Lord's: A 110 All Out

Pakistan trudged off at Lord’s with just 110 on the board, and with it came a verdict as cold as the London sky. Michael Vaughan did not bother with niceties.

Pakistan had arrived at the old ground searching for a response, bruised from an innings-and-53-run defeat in the first Test and buoyed by the return of their captain. Babar Azam’s comeback was supposed to steady them. Instead, it only underlined the scale of the problem.

He made 8. Abdullah Shafique went for 5. Shan Masood for 1. Mohammad Rizwan for 7. A top order that, on paper, carries pedigree, folded in 37.4 overs.

Only Azan Awais, in just his second Test, showed any real resistance. The left-hander ducked, weaved and fought his way to 46, riding the short ball and trying to stitch together something resembling an innings. Around him, wickets kept tumbling. Pakistan never looked like a side building a total; they looked like one trying to survive the next over.

For Vaughan, watching on for BBC Test Match Special, this was not simply a bad day. It was an indictment.

"I'll be brutally honest. The England bowlers aren't being challenged at all," he said, as Pakistan’s scorecard unravelled. "And this Pakistan batting lineup is possibly the easiest batting lineup I've seen in a long time to bowl to."

He went further. In his eyes, England’s seamers sensed not risk, but opportunity.

"As a bowler, I think they're all queuing up to bowl because they know there are wickets out there. You're not going to get hurt. There's no batter that's going to hurt them. No one's going to damage their figures, and it's really, 'roll up, roll up, who wants to get the wickets?'"

It was a brutal picture: Test cricket’s most storied venue, and an attack operating, in Vaughan’s view, without any fear of consequence. Pakistan, he suggested, had turned a high‑stakes series into target practice.

The numbers backed the mood. All out for 110, inside 38 overs, on a surface that had not appeared diabolical when England batted. The hosts’ bowlers hit their lengths, found movement, and were rewarded again and again. Pakistan offered little in the way of sustained resistance or counterpunch.

Vaughan then questioned something more fundamental: whether this batting unit currently belongs at this level.

"I think they all know that Pakistan aren't going to get big scores," he said of England’s bowlers. "So you're only going to be out there for 40 to 50 overs, so you give everything in every spell, you keep going to Joe Root saying, 'Err, I'll bowl another one.' There are so many wickets out there."

This was not just criticism of technique. It was a swipe at aura, at presence, at the threat a Test lineup is supposed to carry. In Vaughan’s eyes, there was none.

So he reached for a comparison guaranteed to sting in Pakistan’s dressing room.

"It's so easy. They're still doing a good job, and they're still looking very threatening. And I think this bowling attack, the way they're bowling, will challenge better batting lineups if they continue in this fashion.

"But this is Pakistan batting. Is it second division county cricket? There's no way that they are batting in any standard to say that, that is a Test match batting lineup."

Second-division county. Not just below elite, but a rung beneath England’s own domestic top tier. For a nation that has produced some of the most gifted stroke-makers the game has known, the words cut deep.

Pakistan’s problems were not limited to form. Imam-ul-Haq, their regular opener, did not bat after suffering a calf strain while fielding, leaving the top order further unsettled. Yet even with that caveat, 110 all out felt far short of what the occasion demanded.

England, ruthless and efficient, cashed in. By stumps on the second day they were 81 for 3 in their second innings, the lead already 261. On this surface, against this fragile opposition, that advantage looked enormous.

The pattern of the series had tightened its grip. England’s bowlers hunted in packs, sensing blood. Pakistan’s batters walked out one by one into a storm they never looked ready to face.

Now the visitors stare at a familiar question, one Vaughan has already answered in the harshest possible terms: can this batting group prove they are a Test lineup, not just in name, but in substance, before this tour slips completely away?