Pakistan Faces Batting Crisis as Gill Shines
By the close at Edgbaston, Pakistan were staring at a number no team wants attached to its name. Not a scoreline. A comparison.
After three Tests of this wretched series in England, Pakistan’s entire batting unit has crawled to 743 runs. Shubman Gill, on his own, made 754 in India’s five-Test epic in England last year. One man outscoring an entire team across almost three matches. The statistic hangs over Pakistan’s tour like a damning verdict.
A crisis laid bare
This is no ordinary slump. This is a full-blown batting crisis.
Pakistan arrived in Birmingham already 2-0 down, bruised by defeats at Headingley and Lord’s and shaken by sweeping changes from the Pakistan Cricket Board. Seven players axed. The coaching staff sacked. A public reset in the middle of a high-profile series.
At the toss, Babar Azam tried to project calm. Asked how hard it had been to lead through such upheaval, he brushed it off.
“Not difficult,” he said. Changes, yes. Turbulence, certainly. But, he insisted, it was “a good opportunity to new boys” and Pakistan were “trying to do our best in this match.”
Within a session, that optimism looked painfully hollow.
Put in to bat, Pakistan folded for 133. Same story, new venue. The problems that had stalked them at Leeds and London simply followed them down the motorway to Birmingham.
Top order in freefall
The collapse began immediately. Ollie Robinson, on 99 Test wickets at the start of the day, trapped recalled opener Saim Ayub lbw for a duck. One ball, one review, one milestone: Robinson had his 100th.
Jofra Archer then went to work. He removed debutant Azan Awais, and when Abdullah Shafique nicked off to Robinson, Pakistan were already wobbling. Shan Masood, the captain at Lord’s, perished to a loose cross-bat stroke, caught at mid-wicket off Archer. Another senior batter, another soft dismissal.
The pressure only intensified.
Josh Tongue took over and ripped through the heart of the innings. He removed Babar Azam, then knocked over both debutants Ghazi Ghori and Imran Randhawa before lunch. Three new batters, three failures, and a captain back in the pavilion. The attempted reset was crumbling in real time.
After the interval, Razaullah Khan departed for 11. Any hope of a late-order rally evaporated quickly.
Only Saud Shakeel offered resistance. The left-hander, who had fought to 97 in the defeat at Lord’s, once again tried to drag Pakistan to something resembling respectability. He compiled a composed 43, leaving the ball well, picking off anything loose, and for a brief spell slowing the English surge.
Then Tongue bent one back sharply. Shakeel’s off stump went cartwheeling, and with it Pakistan’s last real hope of a competitive total.
Archer closed with 3-25, his pace and hostility too much for a fragile top order. Robinson, relentlessly accurate, finished with 3-15 from 11 miserly overs. Tongue led the figures with 4-42, his movement and aggression perfectly suited to a pitch that rewarded discipline.
Pakistan, all out for 133, walked off knowing they had once again left their bowlers with nothing to work with.
England tighten the screw
England did not have it all their own way with the bat, but they did enough to underline the gulf between the sides.
Ben Duckett fell early for 11, Mohammad Ali finding his edge. Jordan Cox followed for 4, undone by Mohammad Abbas. At 28-2, Pakistan had a sliver of an opening.
They could not prise it wider.
Emilio Gay and Harry Brook shut the door with composed half-centuries, steering England into a position of control. They absorbed Pakistan’s best spells, punished anything wayward and, crucially, made sure early wickets did not turn into a collapse.
Even the dismissal of Joe Root — lbw yet again, the 10th time in 13 innings — could not derail the innings. England marched to 156-4 by stumps, already 23 runs ahead on first innings with six wickets still in hand.
Robinson, who had spent the day tormenting Pakistan’s batters, walked off with his personal tally moved from 99 to 102 Test wickets. His average, 19.1, now stands as the best among post-war bowlers with more than 100 dismissals. While Pakistan search desperately for a reliable run-scorer, England possess a seamer operating at historically elite levels.
The Gill yardstick
And so the number returns. 754.
Gill’s run-glut last year came across five Tests, a campaign that showcased control, adaptability and sheer weight of scoring. Pakistan, by contrast, have needed two full Tests and one innings of a third just to reach 743.
The comparison is brutal. It is also unavoidable.
It speaks not only to Gill’s consistency but to Pakistan’s collective failure. A top order that keeps splintering, a middle order forever in rescue mode, and a tail exposed inside the first session far too often.
Statistical quirks surface every series. This one cuts deeper. It tells a story of a team that, even after drastic surgery to its squad and staff, still cannot find a way to bat time, absorb pressure, and build scores in English conditions.
As England tighten their grip on the match and the series, Pakistan are left with a stark question: where does a revival even begin when one man from another team, in another summer, has outscored your entire side?
