Rain, not resistance, keeps Pakistan alive. Just.
By the time the covers went on for good at 17:07 in Birmingham, England had one hand, one foot and most of the dressing room on a two-day win. Only the weather stopped them walking off with the series whitewash wrapped up a day early.
Pakistan will return on Friday on 52-2, still 268 runs away from merely making England bat again. That number tells its own story. So does the series: Pakistan have yet to reach 200 or last beyond 51 overs in any innings. This is not a contest; it is an examination. They are failing it.
England turn the screw
The day began with a question: would England, under Joe Root’s fresh stewardship, ease off with the series already won, as they so often did at the end of the Ben Stokes–Brendon McCullum era?
The answer was emphatic.
Starting on 156-4 with a lead of just 23, England batted with purpose rather than recklessness, piling up 453 and stretching their advantage to a monstrous 320. Four men passed fifty. None reached a hundred. It barely mattered.
Harry Brook, all clean timing and controlled aggression, led the way with 75. Dan Lawrence, playing for his long-term place as much as for this match, carved 65 with a busy urgency that kept Pakistan gasping for breath. Jamie Smith, rebuilding his reputation after a bruising Ashes, added 69 that mixed muscle with method. Then Ollie Robinson, in the month of his career, crashed 50 and made Pakistan’s bowlers look weary and one-dimensional.
There was frustration amid the dominance. Ben Duckett’s century against New Zealand at Trent Bridge will stand alone as England’s only hundred of the home summer. For a batting line-up that has toyed with this Pakistan attack, that is a statistical oddity and a personal annoyance for several.
Brook and Lawrence looked set to correct it in the morning. Their stand of 86 bristled with intent. Lawrence drove and whipped, Brook threaded gaps and ran hard. Perhaps too hard. Brook’s innings ended with a self-inflicted wound, run out at the non-striker’s end after chancing a single to mid-wicket that never existed.
Lawrence, in his 17th Test, again looked the part. Three half-centuries since his recall have probably booked his ticket to South Africa in December, but the wait for a maiden hundred is beginning to gnaw. When he chopped Mohammad Imran on to his stumps, he let out an audible cry – the sound of a man who knows he is close, but not close enough.
Smith’s knock carried its own quiet significance. After a rough Ashes, this summer has been about rebuilding trust – in his own game, and in the selectors’ faith. At Edgbaston, a ground where he has prospered before, he hammered anything on his pads through the leg side with authority. His dismissal, a soft return catch to Razaullah, felt out of step with the rest of his innings.
Then came Robinson. Right now, everything he touches turns to runs or wickets. He slogged with intent, launching a huge six into the Hollies Stand, raising his second Test half-century. The first came in Ranchi in 2024, his last Test before being dropped. Back then, his place looked fragile. Now, he feels indispensable.
Jofra Archer joined the fun late on, clubbing two sixes of his own in a cameo 32 not out. The innings ended with Josh Tongue edging behind, leaving Pakistan staring up at a 320-run mountain.
Robinson’s new-ball carnage
After tea, with blue skies giving way to brooding cloud, England had one session to chase a rare feat: the first two-day Test finish in this country since 2000.
Jordan Cox took the gloves in place of Smith, who nursed a bruised finger. Robinson took the ball and immediately took charge.
First delivery of the innings. Saim Ayub, perhaps chasing a statement of intent, instead chased a wide one and nicked off to Brook at second slip. Needless. Nerves laid bare from ball one.
The over grew darker for Pakistan. Abdullah Shafique, bat coming down crooked, edged to Root at first slip. 0-2. Robinson wheeled away, Edgbaston roared, and the idea of a two-day finish suddenly felt less like fantasy and more like schedule planning.
England hunted in packs. The slips closed in, fielders prowled, the ball hissed past the bat. Pakistan, again, looked overmatched.
Azan Awais and captain Shan Masood did at least show some backbone. They survived 12 overs in the gloom, Masood offering one sharp chance to Ben Duckett at third slip off Gus Atkinson. It went down. It kept Pakistan breathing, but only just.
A different kind of England
Context matters. This Pakistan side is poor. Stokes’ England, for all their flaws in dead rubbers, would almost certainly have beaten them as well. England also enjoyed the better of Thursday’s conditions: they batted under blue skies, then unleashed their seamers under darkening cloud.
Yet something about this performance feels different.
Under Root, there is less frenzy, more calculation. The batting has found gears rather than a single, relentless top speed. On day two, they didn’t chase the crowd-pleasing chaos that defined early Bazball; they picked Pakistan apart, over by over, session by session.
And where Stokes bristled at the word “ruthless”, this version of England is starting to embody it. Six consecutive series had ended with England losing the final Test. Some of their worst efforts in the Bazball era came in dead rubbers – the limp showings against Sri Lanka at home in 2024, the flat finale in New Zealand later that year.
This week at Edgbaston, there has been no such soft landing. Just a clinical desire to finish the job.
At the heart of it stands Robinson, in the form of his life. If this purple patch stretches into the winter and on to next summer’s Ashes, England’s attack suddenly looks far more menacing.
For now, the only thing between them and a 3-0 clean sweep is 268 runs and a forecast. Pakistan have not yet shown they can last 51 overs, let alone overturn a deficit of this scale.
The rain did its job on Thursday. On Friday, Pakistan must finally do theirs.
