Pakistan clinch thrilling Test as Yasir Shah has last word

Pakistan bowler Mohammad Amir jumps for joy after bowling Stuart Broad during day four. Picture: Getty

Yasir took his match haul to a Pakistan ground-record ten for 141 to help bowl England out for 207 late on the fourth evening, in pursuit of 283 – their highest chase at this venue.

Misbah-ul-Haq’s tourists are therefore 1-0 up, with three to play, having profited most from their captain’s first-innings century and then Yasir’s expertise – defying unfamiliar climes, in his first Test outside Asia.

Three 40s in England’s middle order were not enough, after they had bowled Pakistan out for 215 and set off to make some history of their own – with almost two full days at their disposal.

Rahat Ali took three top-order wickets; then Yasir (four for 69) had his predictable say too, and Mohammad Amir appropriately helped finish the job as a succession of batsmen failed to decide between attack and defence and struggled for a winning tempo.

Wise heads had predicted England’s best chance of success lay with a substantial score from either Alastair Cook or Joe Root.

There was none forthcoming, though, as Rahat did the early damage. Cook got a thin edge behind, and Root (nine) mistimed a pull straight to one of the two men positioned in the leg-side deep for just that errant possibility.

Rahat (three for 47) very nearly had four before lunch, James Vince surviving on nine when he squeezed an edged drive low to Younus Khan’s right at second slip.

Vince greeted Wahab Riaz’s first over with a rush of boundaries – three, including two fine pulls, in the left-armer’s first over and then two at the other end off Yasir, all in the space of six balls.

Gary Ballance was less adventurous, and it was an optimistic drive to only his third ball after lunch that did for Vince (42) when he edged Wahab to second slip – where Younus held on this time.

The Ballance method did not quite cut it either as he, like Vince, fell short of 50 just when it seemed he might haul England within sight of victory.

Moeen Ali then gave himself only three sighters before he went on the charge at Yasir, missed and was bowled by another leg-break.

It was therefore over to Jonny Bairstow, batting stoically against type, and Chris Woakes – England’s hero with the ball in this match – to try to keep hope alive.

They had fortune on their side, and Wahab decidedly did not in a brilliant five-over spell in which both batsmen played, missed and edged yet  somehow stayed put in a laborious 50 stand containing just three fours in more than 28 overs.

Bairstow became the third England batsman to fall in the 40s, when he tried to whip a leg-break past mid-on off the back foot and was instead the third to be bowled by a Yasir leg-break for 48.

Amir then returned to bowl Stuart Broad with full-length swing – and even Woakes, in a match he will nonetheless remember fondly for his brilliant individual performance, could not prevent the inevitable as the last four wickets fell for 12 runs. He was ninth out, edging to slip as Yasir  completed his ten-wicket match haul, and Amir then clean-bowled number 11  debutant Jake Ball.

Broad (three for 38) had earlier taken two wickets in two balls to finish with six in the match, to Woakes’ 11, as Pakistan added only a single to their overnight total.

It was Broad’s 350th Test wicket, with only James Anderson and Sir Ian Botham above him in England’s all-time list, and he wasted no time over number 351 – Amir also edging behind.

In the end, though, England had still left themselves with too much to do.