Abrar Ahmed, making his debut for Pakistan, bowled England out for 281 on the first day of the second test match being played in Multan. Abrar Ahmed took seven wickets during this performance, which resulted in the tourists being dismissed.
The 24-year-old individual, who finished with a score of 7-114, earned the nick name “Harry Potter” from his peers due to the fact that he wears glasses that are quite similar to those that the fictional boy wizard does.
In their reply, Pakistan were 107-2 at the end of their innings, behind by 174 runs. Their skipper, Babar Azam, was undefeated on 61 runs, while Saud Shakeel was on 32. James Anderson was the only fast bowler to dismiss a batter on the day. He did so by finding an edge off Pakistan opener Imam-ul-Haq, who left the field without scoring. There were a total of 12 wickets that dropped throughout the day.
Azam and Shakeel batted together for an unbroken third-wicket stand of 56 runs, putting an end to the day’s play after Abdullah Shafique scored 14 runs before edging spinner Jack Leach to keeper Ollie Pope.
The home team, and Abrar Ahmed in particular, dominated play throughout the day.
Azam’s hope that the pitch would turn right from the beginning was granted when he was under intense pressure to even the series.
It was just the ninth over when he decided to bring Ahmed into the game, and the spinner thanked him by bowled Crawley with a sharp entering delivery. This was only Ahmed’s fifth ball in a test match.
After that, Ahmed leg-before trapped Duckett and Root, but Azam overturned both of those calls after he examined what had happened on the field.
When Pope and Brook made ambitious strokes but miscued them and were caught, he increased his lead to 167-5. Ahmed was pleased with the results of his effort.
He stated, “People do call me Harry Potter, but I am not a magician.” “People do call me Harry Potter.” “I have completed what it is my responsibility to do, which is to take wickets,”
The moment of the match for him came when he took the wicket of Ben Stokes, who was the captain of England.
“My teammates were telling me that normally it is the first wicket that you cherish, but for me, Stokes’ wicket was the best.” “For me, the best wicket was Stokes’ wicket.” After lunch, Stokes (30) and Will Jacks (31) resisted the attack by putting on a sixth-wicket stand that was worth 61 runs.
Ben Duckett (63) and Pope (60) were the top scorers for England in their innings, which came to an end at the stroke of tea after Stokes, who won the toss and selected to bat, elected to bat first.
Spinner Zahid Mahmood finished with a total of 3-63 and took all three of the final wickets.
Ahmed’s stats were the second-best on debut by a Pakistan bowler, behind the pacer Mohammad Zahid’s 7-66 against New Zealand in Rawalpindi in 1996. Ahmed’s figures were the second-best on debut by a Pakistan bowler.
In his first innings as a bowler for Pakistan, he became the 13th Pakistani bowler to record at least five wickets. Duckett expressed his optimism that early wickets on Saturday will help England regain their footing in the match.
He stated, “Ahmed bowled pretty well… it’s obviously spinning,” in reference to Ahmed’s performance. “Tomorrow, I’m hoping that we’ll be able to take wickets in clusters.”
The first test match of the three-match series was played at Rawalpindi, which England won by a score of 74 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the series. This is England’s first trip of Pakistan since 2005.