Fakhar's 127, Saad Baig's 74 and Shaheen's double act: Pakistan scale 326 to win by three wickets

Pakistan chased down 326 against Sri Lanka with three wickets in hand, finishing the job in the most dramatic fashion possible. With two runs required, Minhas and Faheem Ashraf fell in quick succession, leaving Shaheen Afridi to walk out and hit his first ball for six over the boundary to settle the contest. This was not a one-man victory. Fakhar Zaman's 127, Saad Baig's 74, a 94-run stand between Minhas and Mohammad Nawaz, Haris Rauf's two late wickets and Shaheen's contribution with both ball and bat combined to make the target achievable. For a side that had been bowled out for 110 just four days earlier, chasing 326 was a statement in itself. The closing stretch was never comfortable. Pakistan needed 46 from 30 balls, and the pressure was visible. A 15-run over then reduced the equation to 31 from 24, and that was the phase that decided the match. Pakistan moved to within touching distance, only to lose Minhas and then Faheem with two runs still needed, silencing the dressing room. Shaheen's first-ball six ended the tension. It was a fitting finish, because his contribution in this match was never limited to the bat. Fakhar Zaman's 127 laid the platform, but the innings deserves an honest reading. He was dropped at 6, at 69 and at 106 — three reprieves, two of them put down by Maheesh Theekshana. Had any one of those chances been taken, the direction of the chase might have been very different. That does not diminish the value of a 127-run innings, but it does mean the century cannot be described as flawless. Fakhar was the fourth wicket to fall, and when he departed a substantial part of the target was still outstanding. The most important partnership alongside Fakhar came from 19-year-old Saad Baig, who made 74. It was his first international half-century, and it arrived at a moment when the innings was still recovering from early blows. It also came just hours before his 20th birthday. A teenager batting with that composure in a 326 chase is one of the least discussed stories of this match. He was the third wicket to fall, having supplied exactly the stability the team needed. The start had been poor. Pakistan were 14 for 2, losing Maaz first and then Babar Azam for a duck. The pre-match expectation was that a chase of this size would require a Babar special. That innings never came. It is the central irony of the match: the batter from whom the big knock was expected could not open his account, and the win was delivered by players from whom nothing of the sort was anticipated. Sri Lanka's 325 for 8 was built around Kamindu Mendis, who made 131 — his highest ODI score and more than double his previous career best. It came seven years after his ODI debut, at a time when many had begun to wonder whether his white-ball career would ever match his potential. Dasun Shanaka contributed a brisk cameo at the end, taking Sri Lanka to 255 for 2 in 41 overs. Kamindu shared a 146-run second-wicket stand with Pavan Rathnayake, who made 77. Rathnayake has had a prolific tri-series, with 427 runs at an average of 106.75. That figure needs a caveat: it comes from only four innings, and an average built on such a small sample should not be read as a settled trend. The collapse came in the last nine overs, when Sri Lanka lost six wickets and slid from 255 for 2 to 325 for 8. Shaheen Afridi was central to that slide, dismissing both Kamindu Mendis and Shanaka and checking Sri Lanka's scoring rate at the moment it was accelerating. Whether the late collapse was a Pakistani bowling achievement or a Sri Lankan tactical error cannot be settled without ball-by-ball detail. In the chase, Salman Ali Agha fell as the fifth wicket before Minhas and Mohammad Nawaz put on 94. That stand turned a difficult position into one that looked routine. But it would be wrong to say it won the game. Both batters fell with only two runs required. The stand simplified the chase; it did not seal it. The final blow came from Shaheen's bat, which is itself evidence that the win was distributed rather than individual. On the bowling side, Haris Rauf took two crucial late wickets by bowling short consistently. Minhas's left-arm spin was expensive, though no figures are available to quantify how expensive. This points to a broader asymmetry in the match's record: batting numbers are detailed, bowling numbers are largely absent. The one hard figure supporting the comeback narrative is that Pakistan took six wickets in the last nine overs. The larger context is that Pakistan had been bowled out for 110 only four days earlier. No explanation has been offered for the turnaround — no captain, coach or player has spoken about it. The tri-series involves Pakistan, Sri Lanka and England, yet England is not mentioned anywhere in the match's coverage, which leaves the structure of the competition unclear. Without the points table and remaining fixtures, the significance of this win cannot be assessed. What is also entirely missing is player voice. After a match featuring a teenager's fifty on the eve of his birthday, three dropped catches and a winning six off the first ball, there is not a single quotation from anyone involved. That suggests the material is a scorecard-based review rather than on-the-ground reporting, and any quote inserted into it would be an injustice to the facts. Arithmetically, the numbers hold together. 255 for 2 in 41 overs, then six wickets in the last nine overs to reach 325 for 8, setting a target of 326. Pakistan reached it with three wickets in hand, meaning seven wickets fell. The order of dismissals is consistent with that. What is unavailable is the toss, the exact end of Sri Lanka's innings, and the player of the match and player of the series. For Pakistan, this win matters on several counts. Fakhar's 127 gave the innings its foundation, Saad Baig's emergence points to the future, and Shaheen's all-round contribution made the result collective. But the question that follows is whether this can be repeated. For a team that was bowled out for 110 four days ago, that question remains unanswered — and until it is, this should be treated as a fine performance rather than proof of a turnaround.