Arafat Minhas first gave Pakistan something to defend, then dismantled England’s attempt to chase it. His 59 and six for 40 drove an 87-run victory in Rawalpindi on 20 October, taking Pakistan to two wins from their first two matches in the ODI tri-series. PCB’s match report.

The bowling figures make the obvious headline. The batting contribution explains why those wickets could decide the match. Pakistan had been five wickets down for 133 before their lower middle order changed the scale of England’s task.

A total built after the damage

Team Total Overs
Pakistan 302 for nine 50
England 215 all out 38.4

Pakistan won by 87 runs. Result and innings totals.

Hasan Nawaz made 79 from 74 deliveries. His sixth-wicket stand with Minhas added 78, and Minhas then shared another 72 with Faheem Ashraf, who contributed 39. Pakistan scored 91 in the last ten overs. AFP on Pakistan’s recovery.

Those successive stands changed the demands on the batting side. A partnership after five wickets has fallen must preserve enough resources to reach the end, but it also needs to leave the team with a score worth defending. Pakistan achieved both. The recovery survived the departure of one established batter because another productive partnership followed it.

That continuity was important. A single counterattack can fade when the next wicket falls. Here, England had to work through more than one combination, while Pakistan kept enough batting available to accelerate at the finish.

Minhas’s innings was useful because it connected those partnerships. His runs did not exist in isolation from Nawaz’s power or Ashraf’s late contribution; they allowed the recovery to continue across a change of partner.

England’s opening partnership had the chase moving

England reached 91 without loss. Ben Duckett made 45, and Tom Banton went on to 57 from 53 balls. At 120 for one, the visitors still had a strong position from which to pursue 303. They then lost their remaining nine wickets for 95. AFP’s account of the chase.

That progression prevents the result being explained as a chase that was hopeless from the outset. England had already negotiated a substantial opening period without losing control of the equation. The collapse happened after the platform had been built.

An opening stand has value only if the rest of the innings can use it. It creates options: a new batter can take a little time, a partnership can absorb a wicket, and the required rate need not dictate every shot. England’s wickets arrived too regularly for those options to remain available.

Pakistan’s recovery and England’s reply therefore moved in opposite directions. The hosts made the innings continue after a difficult start. The visitors could not maintain it after a good one.

Minhas turned breakthroughs into a spell

Minhas removed Banton, bowled Harry Brook for five, and trapped Jordan Cox for 18. His eventual six-wicket return dominated England’s innings. Naseem Shah dismissed Joe Root for 33, while Haris Rauf accounted for Sam Curran, who made 27. Wickets and individual contributions.

The value of a spell like that is the repeated reset it forces on the batting side. One wicket can be followed by a quiet recovery. Several wickets remove the partnerships that make recovery possible, bringing new batters in while the pressure is already rising.

It would still be too simple to treat six wickets as evidence that every dismissal was unplayable. A productive bowling spell draws its value from the whole sequence: good deliveries, restricted options and mistakes that the fielding side converts. Minhas kept producing opportunities as the chase deteriorated.

The wickets at the other end mattered too. Pakistan did not leave one bowler to contain every threat. Removing Root and Curran helped prevent England from rebuilding around an experienced batter while Minhas attacked the rest.

A performance worth remembering beyond the six-for

For England, the review has two separate parts. They allowed Pakistan to recover from a position of real vulnerability, then failed to carry a promising opening stand into a competitive finish. Solving only one of those problems would leave the other exposed.

For Pakistan, the strongest feature was the range of the contribution. Minhas had an effect while his side was under pressure with the bat and again when England were well placed in reply. Nawaz and Ashraf supplied the partnerships that made the first intervention count.

One match cannot establish a permanent answer to a team’s balance. It can show the practical value of an all-rounder whose batting is substantial enough to repair an innings and whose bowling is threatening enough to take over the next one. In Rawalpindi, Minhas supplied both.

Sources