Pakistan’s August tour of England is two Tests into a three-match series, and England have won both — the series is already wrapped up. Here’s a look back at the two matches.
1st Test (Leeds): done inside three days, England win by an innings and 103 runs
Pakistan went into the series opener without captain Babar Azam, ruled out injured the day before the match, handing Salman Ali Agha his first Test as captain. The match didn’t last long — England batted first and posted 366 for 8 declared, with Harry Brook’s 91 the standout innings, while Pakistan managed just 171 and 135 across their two innings, both completely smothered by England’s pace attack.
With the ball, Ollie Robinson and Josh Tongue were the story of the match, each taking eight wickets across the two innings — Robinson finished with match figures of 8 for 80 (5 for 51, then 3 for 29) and was named Player of the Match, while Tongue took 8 for 89 (including 5 for 46 in the first innings). Jofra Archer chipped in with three more wickets, and between the three of them Pakistan’s batting was thoroughly dismantled. Pakistan’s only real bright spots were Abdullah Shafique’s 61 and Ali Usman’s maiden five-wicket haul with the ball, but neither was enough to prevent a three-day defeat.
2nd Test (Lord’s): rain couldn’t save Pakistan from Robinson, England win by 194 runs
The series moved to Lord’s, where rain briefly threatened to intervene — only 24.5 overs were possible on day three — but it ultimately didn’t change the outcome. England’s first innings of 290 was led by Jamie Smith’s 61, and their second innings of 208 by Dan Lawrence’s 54; Pakistan managed just 110 and 194 in reply, with Saud Shakeel coming close to a century with 97 in the second innings, but it wasn’t enough — England won by 194 runs.
Robinson’s performance here topped even his first Test — match figures of 8 for 35 off just 27 overs (4 for 11 and 4 for 24), earning him a second straight Player of the Match award. Jofra Archer added another five wickets across the match. Across the two Tests so far, Robinson and Archer have combined for 24 of Pakistan’s 38 wickets, making them the biggest reason for England’s two wins. For Pakistan, Mohammad Abbas provided the lone highlight — his 5 for 57 in the second innings got his name onto the Lord’s honours board, and his match figures of nine wickets were the only real positive Pakistan could take from the game.
Breaking down the bowling: England’s layered attack vs. Abbas fighting a one-man war
If you actually break this series down, the gap between the two bowling attacks is more interesting than the results themselves. England’s biggest edge is the variety built into the attack. Robinson operates as the precision option — bowling around 80 to 85 mph, relying on a near-metronomic release and seam position to pin the ball in a tight corridor just outside off stump and force batters into mistakes rather than blowing them away with raw pace; his approach is regularly compared to Glenn McGrath, and he’s been averaging around 23 runs per wicket this season, arguably the most consistent medium-pacer England have right now. The genuine intimidation factor comes from Archer instead — his pace is something Pakistan’s batters simply can’t replicate in the nets before the series, and with Gus Atkinson occasionally touching close to 90 mph and attacking the stumps relentlessly, batters barely get a ball they can safely leave. Tongue then adds further depth as the rotation option. Put together, it’s an attack where one bowler intimidates with speed while another wears batters down with precision — Pakistan’s lineup never got a moment to breathe across either Test.
Pakistan, by contrast, has essentially been a one-man show with the ball — Mohammad Abbas carrying the entire attack more or less alone. Abbas, for all his experience in county cricket, actually shares a similar profile to Robinson — accuracy and late movement over raw pace — but he was widely seen as lacking penetration through the early part of the series, only really delivering his standout 5 for 57 in the second innings of the second Test. Beyond Abbas, Pakistan’s touring attack has generally been regarded as one of the weakest in years — genuinely quick bowling options are close to nonexistent, and while spinner Ali Usman did pick up a maiden five-wicket haul at Leeds, spin bowling rarely gets much of a foothold on England’s pace-friendly surfaces, so it’s hard to expect him to provide the kind of sustained threat Abbas can. Put simply: England’s attack rotates multiple specialists, each bringing something different, while Pakistan is relying on one man carrying the whole load with very little depth behind him — and that’s the real reason this series wrapped up 2-0 ahead of schedule.
My take: the bowling gap is the real story, and Pakistan’s batting problems run deeper than they look
Across both Tests, the real gap between these two sides hasn’t been about star power in the batting lineup — it’s been about depth and consistency with the ball, and Pakistan only clearing 150 once in four innings says it all. With Babar Azam missing through injury and the leadership disrupted as a result, both matches were effectively over by day three or four. A 2-0 series win, wrapped up early, isn’t much of a surprise given how these two Tests played out. The third Test starts in September in Birmingham, but based on the gap shown so far, Pakistan will need to fix the depth problem in their bowling attack before they can salvage any pride from this series.