From 154/9 to the Final: Shadab Khan's Hundred, That Review, and the Ledger on England's Selection Error

The board read 154 for nine, 88 still needed, and the aisles in Lahore were filling with people who had already priced the result. I was in a Sharjah studio watching a feed that showed me the queues before it showed me the equation. Then Shadab Khan picked up a bat, and with Haris Rauf — seven off 19 balls, holding one end like a nail holds a shelf — dragged that chase out of a place chases do not come back from. One wicket, final over, a tri-series final secured.

The interesting part is not how Shadab hit. It is that on 97, given lbw to a full toss, he had begun walking off, hands shaken with England, before a review found an inside edge. Twenty needed, twenty got, in twenty minutes that included Rauf arguing a wide with Will Jacks and having to be ushered away by Joe Root; Shadab's first hundred in any international cricket, dabbed off a Gus Atkinson yorker; and Rauf driving Henry Crocombe for the winning four.

After Thursday's 859-run glut, this was bat against ball at speed. Pakistan won the toss and bowled, and England were all out for 241 with twenty balls unused. Ben Duckett's second hundred at this ground — 105, built on sweeps of several hues — sat inside an innings whose first four dismissals lined up like a pin number: 4, 5, 1, 6. Tom Banton clipped Shaheen Shah Afridi's fifth ball to cover, a 150th ODI wicket; Root had time for one boundary before an ugly splodge; Harry Brook, fresh from 202 against Sri Lanka, was run out at fine leg by an inspired Razaullah, on ODI debut, picking up and throwing in one motion; Jordan Cox nuzzled Rauf to third man where Babar Azam dived right at slip. Fifty-six for four at the end of the power play.

Sam Curran, 42, was the only partner with sticking power; the pair added 93 before Shaheen brought himself back and had Curran hooking a shorter ball to fine leg. England's last five wickets added 96. Pakistan did not bowl Arafat Minhas, six wickets at Rawalpindi, until the 29th over, and he removed Duckett and Jamie Overton. Razaullah scooped Jacks off the dirt in his follow-through and had Dawson, eyes down, pulling to deep square leg. Shaheen collected a fourth when Crocombe toe-ended to extra cover, Babar's third catch.

Crocombe was on ODI debut, in for Josh Tongue and a bruised toe. England left Adil Rashid on the bench for the second match running. The salmon-pink kit for breast cancer awareness was the night's most visible marketing decision; the crowd had one name on its lips, and that name was Babar.

Pakistan's chase began under a purple Lahore sky, the ground filling late. The power play tangled them too: Fakhar Zaman flashed a drive into Jamie Overton's giant paws at slip in the fifth over; Saim Ayub, who had opened his account with a six off his tenth ball, opened the face and ladled the ball to the same fielder, and Crocombe was mobbed. Babar gave the home ground two clean strokes — a pure off drive, something equally majestic on the on side — and Atkinson went through the gate and hit the top of off. Saad Baig made an otherworldly 32 before Jacks took a bullet at backward point; Overton had pulled up in his delivery stride and called for the physio earlier in that over.

From there it was cat and mouse. Could England frustrate Pakistan into giving wickets away? Yes. Liam Dawson, Curran and Overton bowled on a button. Hasan Nawaz yahooed Dawson into the stratosphere where Brook waited; Arafat Minhas lasted three balls before directing Overton to Root, whom Brook had just moved to short fine leg; Salman Ali Agha slogged to long off; Razaullah got a gorgeous ball from Jacks between bat and pad. Pakistan 103 for six, then 154 for nine. Game over, apparently.

This is where the match should be read as a set of numbers rather than as a hero's arc. England's seamers bowled on the button for twenty overs with no wrist-spin option on the field — Rashid was padded up and unused — and when the middle overs were done, Atkinson and Crocombe were asked to do a frontline death bowler's job without a frontline death bowler's cover. Shadab did not slog through it; he absorbed length. The twenty runs came not only from boundaries: Rauf's seven off nineteen was the most expensive part of that arithmetic, because it let Shadab rotate strike and take no risk he did not need. The winning four came off a batsman nobody had pencilled in for a winning four.

An old argument resurfaces here, and I will not hide my own side of it. I have never trusted millimetre lbw lines; I think officials have become match editors. Yet on this night the technology saved a batsman when it usually bills bowlers. So let me file the counter-evidence against my own thesis: had there been no inside edge on that full toss, we would be praising an umpire's instinct this morning. The technology did not change the outcome; it revealed what was already there. What changed the outcome was a selection ledger: a world-class leg-spinner benched for a second straight match, and three seamers handed the last overs with no alternative.

The camera cuts away, and that is where I begin taking notes. The highlight package will give Duckett's 105 three minutes and the ninth-wicket stand perhaps forty seconds. The empty stadium ledger recorded a silence nobody has bothered to price — the people who left early did not witness the innings they will never stop hearing about. It turns out the smallest window on the schedule was load-bearing all along.

Pakistan have a final, and an uncomfortable question to carry into it: 103 for six and 154 for nine happened in the same innings, and both times the rescue came from the bottom of the order. The pitch was not unplayable; the batting lost its own tempo twice. England will fly home and find that at 241 all out with twenty balls unused they still had a route to the win, and the route was sitting on the bench. Next time a side is 88 short with nine down, check who is left to bowl before you check the scoreboard. On this night the answer was nobody.