Shadab Khan's 113* and an 89-run last stand: Pakistan turn 154/9 into a final spot

At Lahore's Gaddafi Stadium, in the 45th over, Shadab Khan struck his bat into the ground and sank onto his haunches. Gus Atkinson's delivery had hit his pad, the umpire's finger had gone up, and England's players had begun shaking hands. Joe Root and Harry Brook walked over to him; the rest were turning towards the dressing room. For a moment the television flashed a result — England won by 20 runs. Then Shadab signalled for the review. UltraEdge threw up a spike, the ball had brushed the bat before the pad, the decision was overturned, and the stadium erupted. Two teams that had just shaken hands had to stay out on the field for another hour and a half.

I watched that over four times. I went back to the scorecard because the margin did not match the memory. The memory said Pakistan won by a miracle; the scorecard said England did not take a single wicket in the last 13.1 overs. Both are true, but the miracle is the weakest part of the story.

The match had begun in the opposite direction. Asked to bat, England lost Tom Banton to Shaheen Shah Afridi in the first over and Joe Root in the third. Haris Rauf removed Jordan Cox and England were 52 for 4. From there Ben Duckett made 105 off 111 balls — 10 fours, two sixes — and added 93 for the fifth wicket with Sam Curran, who made 42 off 52.

Shaheen finished with 4 for 46 and England kept stumbling. From 201 for 9, Gus Atkinson's unbeaten 36 carried them to 241 in 46.4 overs. Jamie Overton took 3 for 43 and two slip catches to dismiss Fakhar Zaman and Saim Ayub; Liam Dawson took 2 for 30.

Chasing 242, Pakistan looked worse. Fakhar Zaman fell for 10, Babar Azam for 10, Saim Ayub for 6. Saad Baig's brisk 32 off 22 balls and Salman Ali Agha's 26 kept the scoreboard moving, but by the 34th over the side was 154 for 9. Shadab Khan was playing his first match of the tournament. In a tri-series where a final spot was the prize, Pakistan were one ball from going home.

I built the sheet and read three numbers separately. First: after 154 for 9, Pakistan added 89 runs in 13.1 overs without losing a wicket. Second: of those 89, Shadab scored 82 and Rauf 7. Third: Shadab faced 96 balls, Rauf 19. Eighty-nine runs without a wicket in the last 13.1 overs — that is the biggest number of this match, not the 113.

The stand is the highest for the tenth wicket in a successful ODI run chase. The figure sits in the Gaddafi Stadium scorecard and will find its way into the record books. But a record tells you what happened; it does not tell you how. The how is buried in the strike rotation.

Shadab's strike rate was 117.7; Rauf's was 36.8. Every time Rauf was on strike, Pakistan's run rate fell to roughly a third. The only route to the target was for Shadab to keep as much of the strike as possible and let Rauf face only the overs from which a single could be squeezed. The 96-to-19 split was not an accident — it was a very difficult plan executed across 16 overs, and England never broke it.

Of Shadab's 113, 78 came in boundaries — 12 fours and five sixes — and 35 came running. This was not a blind slog; it involved sprinting for every single. He reached his maiden ODI hundred with a late cut off Atkinson and hit the next ball for six over long-off. With three runs needed, Rauf struck the winning boundary off Henry Crocombe. Pakistan finished on 243 for 9 in 47.1 overs.

One number slips out of view here. Being 154 for 9 in the 34th over meant England had 16 overs and one wicket to get. Saad Baig's 32 off 22 and Salman Ali Agha's 26 deserve to be remembered in that arithmetic, because they bought the overs in which Shadab could settle. Had Saad Baig been out after 12 balls, Shadab would never have had 16 overs of runway.

The review in the 45th over is the most talked-about and least understood part of this. It is easy to call it luck. But a review is also a resource, much like the last coin in an auction purse. Teams burn reviews on optimistic lbw shouts. Pakistan still had that coin in the 45th over. And Shadab asked for it after he had already accepted his fate — that is mental discipline more than technical entitlement.

I do not have ball-tracking for every delivery, so I will say only what the scorecard says: 13.1 overs, 89 runs, no wicket. Nine years of keeping the scorecard and the notebook side by side has taught me one thing — when a No. 10 survives that long, something in the bowling plan has broken. A missing yorker, no sustained attack on the stumps, or a field left open; one of the three was present.

England's hands were already shaking before the UltraEdge graphic appeared. That small picture says something large. A side that starts shaking hands before a review is resolved has forgotten how to close a match. This is England's third straight defeat — by 87 runs to Pakistan, then to Sri Lanka who chased 430 with a ball to spare, and now this. Losing three different ways is a pattern, not bad luck.

On the other side, Ben Duckett's 105 off 111 is the brightest number on the card and possibly the most misleading. England's innings lasted 280 balls; Duckett faced 111 of them, roughly 40 per cent. In a total of 241, an innings that consumes that many deliveries is both a century and a question. When a side finishes 20 to 30 runs short, the strike rate of the centurion (94.6) belongs in the audit too — not just his runs.

And the most uncomfortable fact for Pakistan: their top order fell for 10, 10 and 6. Their leading scorer was a man playing his first match of the tournament, batting at No. 8. That is not a fairytale; it is a selection-window story — the player you leave out can be the one who carries you to a final.

Pakistan have booked their place in the final and play Sri Lanka, whom they beat by 37 runs in the opening game, in their last league match. Before the final, the real question inside the Pakistan camp is not how many runs Shadab can make. It is why they needed him at No. 8 at all. The day the top order cannot survive 13.1 overs against a good new-ball pair, no 113 not out will save them.