Pakistan players celebrate their win against England after the fourth Test match at the Oval in London Sunday.
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England and Pakistan tied the Investec Test Series after the hosts slumped to a fourth day defeat at the Kia Oval.
At The Oval, he managed just 18 runs in the match, dropped a routine catch and annoyed the England management by getting himself fined after confronting the third umpire about his first-innings dismissal to a controversial low catch.
The Prime Minister especially lauded the historic and extraordinary performances of Younis Khan and Yasir Shah who scored double century and took six wickets respectively that consolidated Pakistan Cricket Team’s position in the match.
England captain Alastair Cook said a lack of top-order runs and sloppy catching cost his side the chance of a series win against Pakistan. They think the wickets suit us and we win there.
“We’re a good side when we’re on it, but there’s a few areas we need to improve to make that next step”.
Had England avoided defeat they would have held the distinction of beating every other Test playing nation in the last bilateral series, but that is a statistic that would have papered over some basic issues in the side.
The Pakistan captain was pleased with the team’s ability to overcome the odds and bounce back in style, and was lavish in his praise of his team-mates for delivering when it mattered.
Misbah-ul-Haq said the fact that Pakistan could find themselves No 1 in the Test rankings in a week’s time reflected positively on a team who have been unable to play at home since 2009 because of security concerns.
“We had lost five wickets when I went out to bat”. Six years on, this Test tour has been an unequivocal success.
Charging in for his first over of the afternoon session, Riaz got rid of each of England’s Bairstow and Chris Woakes (4), in consecutive deliveries to reduce England to 209 for eight, from which it couldn’t recover.
Younis’s 218 was the centrepiece of Pakistan’s first-innings 542 all out.
“I knew it would come, but I desperately wanted it to come in this Test”. He needs 544 more runs to have his name included in the list of those who have scored past 10,000 runs in the game’s most-challenging format.
Pakistan needed 13.1 overs to do the necessary, without loss either side of tea, during which Steven Finn pulled up with a hamstring strain which will be scanned on Monday.
In the first innings of the last Test in Galle, Australia were bowled out inside 34 overs.
Pakistan will play five One-Day Internationals (ODI) and a one-off T20I against Pakistan next.
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Reports in the British press Friday suggested England players would be allowed to skip the trip without endangering their long-term future in global cricket even if longstanding security advisor Reg Dickason gave the go-ahead to the tour.
