Pakistan's 326 chase: Fakhar's 127, Saad Baig's 74 and Shaheen's final six

Pakistan chased down 326 against Sri Lanka with three wickets in hand, finishing on 326 for 7. The scorecard looks tidy; the match was not. Pakistan had lost two wickets with only 14 on the board, a century and a half-century in the middle rebuilt the innings, and in the closing stages two wickets fell with just two runs required before Shaheen Afridi ended it with a six. The pressure began immediately. Maaz departed cheaply as the first wicket and Babar Azam fell for a duck as the second, extending his run to nine innings without a half-century. Losing the captain for nothing while chasing 326 is the worst possible start, and at 14 for 2 the target looked close to impossible. Few watching at that point would have expected the game to run into the final overs. Fakhar Zaman played the innings that brought Pakistan back — 127 runs. But there is an aspect to it the scorecard does not show: he was dropped three times. He was put down on 6, again on 69, and again on 106. On all three occasions Sri Lanka had the chance and on all three occasions it went begging; Maheesh Theekshana was involved in two of them. Had any one of those catches been taken, the entire shape of the chase would have changed and Pakistan would have had to start again. Alongside Fakhar, Saad Baig added 146 for the third wicket and steadied the innings. Baig made 74 — his first international fifty, and it came hours before his twentieth birthday. At nineteen, chasing 326 with two wickets already down, this was among the most important innings Pakistan needed on the day. The way he avoided risk early in a big chase gave the team exactly the time it required. When Baig departed, Fakhar followed at 127, but by then Mohammad Minhas and Mohammad Nawaz had taken charge. Together they put on 94 and made the target look comfortable for long stretches, with the required rate falling almost every over. That stand did not win the game, however; it merely simplified it to the point where the final overs could still go either way — which is precisely what happened. When 46 were needed from 30 balls, a 15-run over made the equation much easier. But with two runs still required, Minhas and Faheem Ashraf fell in quick succession and the match opened up again. Walking out at that moment is never easy, especially with two set batters back in the pavilion. Shaheen Afridi arrived and finished it with a six — the man who had made the biggest bowling contribution sealing the result with the bat. Sri Lanka's innings was stronger than 325 for 8 suggests. At 41 overs they were 255 for 2 and positioned for something close to 350. Kamindu Mendis made 131 — the best score of his ODI career, more than doubling his previous best, and it came seven years after his ODI debut. Pavan Rathnayake made 77 and the two laid a solid foundation, using their feet well against spin and never letting the run rate drop through the middle overs. Then Pakistan took six wickets in the last nine overs, and that was the shift that levelled the contest. Shaheen Afridi removed Kamindu Mendis, the biggest wicket of the innings, and also dismissed Dasun Shanaka early, abruptly halting Sri Lanka's scoring rate. Haris Rauf took his two late wickets by bowling short, and Sri Lanka finished at 325. Had that burst not come, Pakistan would have faced something around 360 and the match would have looked very different. Rathnayake has had an outstanding series — 427 runs at 106.75, though that average rests on only four dismissals and should not be over-read. Kamindu's Test record is remarkable too, with a Bradmanesque average and more than 500 runs in his first eight Tests. On this day his innings was the platform on which a total above 300 was built. The win matters for another reason. Four days earlier Pakistan had been bowled out for 110. There is no clear explanation in the match record for how such a large swing arrived so quickly — no obvious change in the batting order, no change in intent. England are also part of this tri-series, and Pakistan's confidence will surely have risen, but the question of consistency remains unanswered. As for credit, this was not one player's win. Fakhar's 127 is the most eye-catching number, but his three reprieves, Saad Baig's 74, the 94-run Minhas–Nawaz stand and Shaheen Afridi's double contribution — two crucial wickets with the ball and the winning six with the bat — all combined to produce the result. Writing the story around the century alone would be unfair to this match, because the outcome came from five separate contributions rather than one innings. For Sri Lanka the biggest regret will be the fielding. A total of 326 is almost always a winning one, but three dropped catches cost them dearly here. Kamindu's 131 went in vain, and the visitors must also ask how they went from 255 for 2 in 41 overs to 325 for 8 in 50. Losing six wickets in the last nine overs was not only a bowling achievement; it was also a batting-strategy failure. For Pakistan this is more than two points. It shows the team can rise from 14 for 2 to chase 326, and also that the habit of taking matches to the very end under pressure has not entirely disappeared. As the series goes on, one question will persist: was this performance an exception, or the start of a change?