Pakistan and Sri Lanka settled for a draw in the opening Test of their two-match series at Rawalpindi on Friday, with bad light wiping out so much playing time across five days that neither side had a realistic chance of forcing a result in the end. Saud Shakeel, Pakistan’s left-handed No. 5, was at the centre of the drama, falling agonisingly short of a century in both innings of the match.
According to Arab News and Aaj English, both citing AFP, roughly 117 overs were lost to bad light out of the 360 scheduled across the Test — with play curtailed in the final session on four of the five days. With barely any time left on the final afternoon, Pakistan captain Babar Azam declared the second innings and the two sides shook hands on a draw rather than chase a result that was no longer possible.
Pakistan had batted first and were bowled out for 434 in their first innings, built around Shakeel’s 93 and fifties from debutants Tayyab Arif and Mohammad Taha, as PakDaily reported at the time. Sri Lanka replied with 446, taking a slender 12-run lead on the back of a brilliant 252-run stand between Dhananjaya de Silva (167) and captain Kusal Mendis (119) – the latter his first Test hundred since taking over the captaincy. The lower order was then cleaned up by debutant pacer Saqib Khan, whose match-defining 7 for 130 had already been covered on this site a day earlier.
Set up with only a slim first-innings deficit to erase, Pakistan batted again and this time it was Shakeel who carried the innings, adding 92 for the sixth wicket with Ghazi Ghori (35) before being bowled by Lahiru Kumara for 97 – three runs short of what would have been a well-deserved hundred, and a cruel repeat of his first-innings dismissal for 93. Babar Azam eventually declared at 284 for 8, setting Sri Lanka a notional target of 273, but there was never enough time left in the match for the tourists to chase it.
| Innings | Score | Key Contributions |
|---|---|---|
| Pakistan 1st Innings | 434/9 declared | Shakeel 93, Arif 57, Taha 51, Babar Azam 50 |
| Sri Lanka 1st Innings | 446 all out | De Silva 167, K. Mendis 119, Saqib Khan 7/130 |
| Pakistan 2nd Innings | 284/8 declared | Shakeel 97, Ghori 35, Babar Azam 34 |
| Result | Match drawn – Sri Lanka set 273, no second innings played | |
Pakistan Observer reported that Saqib Khan, who finished with match figures to match his standout debut, was named Player of the Match for his first-innings burst through the Sri Lankan tail.
Babar Azam praised the conditions and his bowling attack after play, saying the pitch had offered little in the way of easy runs:
“Everyone was expecting the pitch to be difficult,” Babar Azam said, crediting Sri Lanka’s middle-order batting before adding that “Saqib bowled superbly,” according to Arab News.
Sri Lanka captain Kusal Mendis, who led his side from the front with the bat, said he was satisfied with the overall effort despite a sluggish start: “We won a good toss but did not do well in the first session, and that’s where we need to learn. But overall I am happy,” he said, per the same report.
The draw leaves the two-match series level at 0-0 heading into the second and final Test, which multiple outlets including DNA News report will begin on Tuesday, November 17 – reportedly shifted to Rawalpindi’s same venue after the originally pencilled-in Lahore leg ran into concerns over the city’s smog. Pakistan, missing senior spinners Sajid Khan and Noman Ali as well as regular captain Shan Masood from this Test, will be looking for a similarly resilient batting effort from their young top order, while Sri Lanka will hope de Silva and Mendis can again provide the runs that nearly won them the match in Rawalpindi.
Our Opinion
A draw forced almost entirely by bad light rather than genuine stalemate is a frustrating way for any Test to end, and Rawalpindi’s recurring issues with late-afternoon playing conditions deserve a hard look from the PCB’s ground staff and broadcasters alike, since losing nearly a third of the scheduled overs to the weather undercuts the value of five-day cricket for players and paying spectators alike; on the field, though, there is real substance for Pakistan to build on – a callow batting line-up missing its first-choice captain and both senior spinners still managed 434 and 284 against a Sri Lankan attack that had Pakistan under pressure for long stretches, and a maiden seven-wicket haul from debutant Saqib Khan is the kind of result that can change a bowling attack’s fortunes for an entire series, so the second Test at the same ground next week will be a fair test of whether this is a young side finding its feet or simply one good match away from reverting to the struggles that have defined its last nine Tests.
