Highlights
- Shadab Khan was given out LBW on 97 with Pakistan 21 runs short and nine wickets down — players shook hands and the broadcaster flashed an England win before his review revealed an inside edge and overturned the decision
- He finished unbeaten on 113 off 96 balls, the highest score by a No. 8 batter in ODI history, and shared an unbroken 89-run last-wicket stand with Haris Rauf (7 not out)
- The 89-run stand is a record for a successful ODI run chase, breaking the 64 put on by Deryck Murray and Andy Roberts at the inaugural World Cup in 1975
- Pakistan reached 243/9 in 47.1 overs to win by one wicket, qualified for the tri-series final, and left England — beaten in all three of their matches — on the brink of elimination
A chase that was over — twice
England’s innings had been built on one big score. Bowled out for 241 in 46.4 overs, they were carried by Ben Duckett’s 105 off 111 balls, while Shaheen Shah Afridi took 4-46 for Pakistan (BBC via Mezha). In reply, England’s bowlers — Jamie Overton took 3-43 — reduced the hosts to 154/9, leaving Pakistan needing 88 runs with a single wicket in hand (BBC via Mezha).
Then came the moment the match will be remembered for. With 21 runs still needed, Shadab Khan — on 97 and one hit from a maiden ODI hundred — was given out LBW to Gus Atkinson (NDTV Sports). Shadab’s own reaction suggested he thought it was plumb: he smashed his bat on the ground and began shaking hands with the England players, and the broadcaster flashed that England had won the game by 20 runs (NDTV Sports). But Pakistan had one review left, and — as another camera angle later showed — Shadab did signal for it as he walked off (NDTV Sports).
UltraEdge showed a small spike as the ball passed the bat: an inside edge. The decision was overturned, and a match that had been ceremonially finished was alive again (NDTV Sports).
What the reprieve produced: a century and two records
Shadab made the second life count in full. He finished unbeaten on 113 off 96 balls, the highest score by a No. 8 in an ODI, while No. 11 Haris Rauf scored seven not out; their unbroken 89-run stand is a record winning last-wicket partnership in an ODI (BBC via Mezha). The partnership also broke a 51-year-old benchmark for the biggest last-wicket stand in a successful ODI chase — West Indies’ Deryck Murray and Andy Roberts put on 64 against Pakistan at the inaugural men’s World Cup in 1975 (SportsLine).
The stand was a study in strike management: Rauf faced only 19 balls of the 80-ball partnership, defending his first 18 deliveries before cutting loose on the 19th, and survived a run-out scare when Tom Banton’s throw from mid-on missed with 18 runs still needed (BBC via Mezha). Rauf then hit debutant Henry Crocombe for the winning boundary, and Pakistan closed on 243/9 in 47.1 overs — a one-wicket win with 17 balls to spare (BBC via Mezha).
What Shadab said afterwards
Shadab, named Player of the Match, handed the credit to his partner: “Obviously, you only enjoy an innings when the team wins. So, I’m very happy that I played that innings and we won the match. I think Haris deserves more credit than me because, obviously, tailenders at that position are always keen to hit sixes. The way I was guiding him, or he was guiding me, we managed to put together a good partnership” (NDTV Sports).
On the mindset at 154/9, he said: “Obviously, I think you just go with the flow. When I made my comeback in the last series, there was an innings against Australia where I kept going until the end, but I couldn’t win the match. So the idea was to keep believing. The conditions were a little different today, with dew coming in. I also felt their bowling was under a bit of pressure, given how things had gone in the previous match. I thought that if we could put them under pressure, they might end up bowling in areas that suited my game” (NDTV Sports).
What it does to the tri-series
The win secured Pakistan’s place in the tri-series final with a match still to play (SportsLine). For England, a third consecutive defeat leaves their route to the final close to closed: their exit will be confirmed if Sri Lanka beat Pakistan on Tuesday, and they could be out before their final match against Sri Lanka on Thursday (BBC via Mezha). It is a brutal pattern — the defeat came three days after England conceded 430 runs in a loss to Sri Lanka, in what was the second-highest successful chase in ODI history (BBC via Mezha).
Why this finish will be argued about — and why the system worked
First, the controversy is really about optics, not procedure. The review was legal, it was signalled in time, and it corrected an incorrect decision — the edge was there. What unsettled viewers was the sequence: a batter who behaved as if he knew he was out, handshakes exchanged, a result graphic broadcast, and then a reversal. But a batter’s body language has never been part of the Laws, and DRS exists precisely because even the player in the middle can be wrong about an inside edge.
Second, the numbers underneath the drama are historically heavy. A No. 8 had never scored more in an ODI; a last-wicket pair had never added 89 to win one; and the chase record broken dated to 1975, the first World Cup ever played. Finishes are usually remembered for theatre. This one carries both the theatre and the record book.
Third, spare a thought for what it does to England’s series. Three defeats, two of them after holding winning positions deep into the match, and elimination now dependent on a result elsewhere. Pakistan, meanwhile, walk into the final having won a game they had already, briefly, lost — and in Shadab Khan, a comeback all-rounder who turned a walk back to the pavilion into the innings of his career.