England’s already slim chance of turning the second Test around evaporated on a steamy Friday morning as they threw their bats around – literally, in one case – and threw away their wickets, leading Noman Ali and Sajid Khan to lead Pakistan to their first home Test victory could throw. 12 games and three and a half years.

Although a successful chase looked unlikely at the start of the day, with the English openers already dismissed and 261 still needed, it wasn’t long before it fell completely out of the realm of possibility. In the end, England didn’t even get halfway to their target, with Noman taking eight wickets in the second innings, including seven on a dizzying final morning, when the tourists were bowled out for 144. Pakistan won by 152 and avoided a dreaded series whitewash. and set up a series decider in Rawalpindi next week.

Across England on Thursday evening they remained true to their assistant coach Paul Collingwood’s promise that they would not give up their mantra of attacking shots and wanting to score quickly. The tactic’s intended purpose of putting pressure on the bowlers was somewhat undermined by the regularity with which they lost wickets.

Pakistan made their first breakthrough with just the eighth ball of the morning. Sajid’s spin turned Ollie Pope’s strike from a decent defensive shot into a simple return catch and set the tone for a chaotic hour to come. After safely navigating 26 balls on Thursday evening. Joe Root only conceded eight more before missing a sweep and being dealt lbw.

Like Root, Harry Brook fell to Noman, who finally got rewarded for the quality of his bowling during the match after Sajid’s first-innings wicket-taking feat. As Root Brook viewed the lbw decision on the pitch, which sent fans into the busiest parts of the ground, the Hanif Muhammad and Mushtaq Ahmed enclosures, which could flow from the shaded seats at the top to the flat concourse at the bottom, allowing them could turn to watch the DRS system work its magic and seal the batters’ fate on the stadium’s only big screen. Brook’s 16 made this his first Test in Pakistan under a century and took his average in the country to a modest 101.25.

Jamie Smith scored just six before making a mistake until halfway, where Shan Masood took an easy catch. Ben Stokes and Brydon Carse then put on 37 for the seventh wicket, England’s best partnership, with a neat pair of sixes hit down the ground by Carse off Sajid, before the captain came up the track to Noman, missed the ball and, as he waved, his follow-up released his club. As it sailed high to backward square leg, Stokes turned empty-handed to see Mohammad Rizwan removing the bails.

Carse added another six to his collection before becoming the next to go, a wild hoik who only managed to slip Noman. Having become accustomed to meatier contact, he apparently didn’t even notice this, leading to the most confusing of the day’s many reviews. That, as it turned out, left Noman with just six balls to bowl: Jack Leach pushed the fifth into his pads, from where the ball ran to Abdullah Shafique at short leg, and Shoaib Bashir pushed the sixth to the same fielder.

The victory is Pakistan’s reward for the big gamble they took by choosing to play it on a used pitch and fielding a team full of spinners, a risk whose chances of success depended almost entirely on winning the toss and enjoying the best batting conditions. on the first day and the best bowling conditions thereafter. It won’t feel like a particularly repeatable approach that’s likely to lead to consistent long-term success, but they’ll feel like they can plan that for another time. As they fought to keep this series alive, it was the best they had.

England tried to cover all the bases with their team selection, and at several times perhaps regretted choosing two spinners instead of an extra seamer, and choosing two seamers instead of an extra spinner. But in the end, after losing such a crucial throw, it took every other moment of coin toss to fall their way. Especially in the field on the third day, when they dropped Salman Agha twice while he was still in single figures and then saw him add over 50 crucial bonus runs, or when Ben Duckett caught Sajid Khan but had to drop the ball due to his momentum took him over the boundary, or when Saim Ayub scored the very first runs of Pakistan’s second innings by seductively going over the wicketkeeper’s heads and slipping, or when the ball veered off the path of Aamer Jamal and just next to a diving Zak went Crawley, it didn’t quite happen.