Robinson leads dominant seam display as England seal series at Lord's

Pakistan endured another batting failure in the ongoing Test series as England secured the series on expected lines with a massive 194-run win at Lord's. England set Pakistan a daunting target of 388 on the fourth morning and immediately struck thrice very early in the run chase. Pakistan's resistance was short-lived as they were bowled out for 194 despite a brief recovery.

On the fourth morning, Pakistan completed the English innings quickly. The half-centurion Dan Lawrence got things off to a great start with a boundary through point, and Ollie Robinson pulled Mohammad Ali for his first boundary. But shortly thereafter, a nip-backer from Mohammad Abbas smashed the top of Lawrence's offstump, giving the visitors a crucial early advantage. Abbas then got one to move away after pitching to take Robinson's outside edge that gave him a deserved five-fer. Josh Tongue added a couple of boundaries but a run out brought a swift end to the innings with England failing to drag their lead past the 400-run mark.

However, there were enough signs as early as the fifth over of the Pakistan innings that this target would be more than enough. Robinson first trapped Azan Awais legbefore, coming up with a cracking delivery to breach Abdullah Shafique's defence and clatter the offstump, getting rid of him for a duck in the same over. When Jofra Archer struck for the big fish two overs later, the situation quickly deteriorated. Jordan Cox successfully completed a straightforward catch in the slip cordon after Babar made a clumsy half leave to Archer's short delivery.

Saud Shakeel and Shan Masood then went through a testing period of play before lunch. They were both beaten on a few occasions, managed to fetch some boundaries and more importantly, survived through to the session break. England also lost two reviews during that time period as they tried to wrap things up quickly. However, Shakeel batted in positive fashion after the break and kept England at bay for a decent amount of time alongside Masood. Shakeel brought up a fifty off just 54 balls and shortly after, there was a rain interruption that kept the players indoors for almost 40 minutes.

Robinson was once more the one who broke through after the fight resumed, putting an end to Masood's stubborn resistance. Mohammad Rizwan was the next to leave because, while attempting a slog, he was caught lbw by Robinson. With half the side back in the pavilion and Imam-ul-Haq not fit enough to bat, the contest was pretty much done and dusted at this point. Ali Usman hung in for 44 deliveries before dragging one from Archer onto his stumps and that prompted a reaction at the other end from Shakeel who smashed two sixes in an over from Tongue in his bid to get to a century. The fielder was found in the deep when he was three short of his ton, and Tongue mopped up the tail to put Pakistan out of their misery, which was agonizing.