England sweep Pakistan 3-0 as Robinson returns and Root stutters
England beat Pakistan by eight wickets at Edgbaston to finish a 3-0 series win on 12 September. The victory closed the home Test summer in style. It also set up a clear split between winners and losers.
The third Test ran from 9 to 12 September at Edgbaston Cricket Ground in Birmingham, according to scorecard records ESPNcricinfo. Pakistan collapsed with the bat on the opening day. That left England on course for a whitewash, winning every match in the series Reuters.
The summer featured two Rothesay Test series at home, against New Zealand and then Pakistan. The Pakistan series was played across August and September ECB. A white-ball series against Sri Lanka, the shorter limited-overs formats, was scheduled to follow.
Ollie Robinson was named among the summer’s winners The Guardian. He had made only one England appearance in just under three years before this comeback. He started the first Test of the summer with three wickets in an over, then started his final bowling innings against Pakistan with two wickets in an over.
Robinson finished with 21 wickets in the Pakistan series. He also hit a 47-ball half-century at Edgbaston. That is fifty runs at better than a run a ball. For a bowler, that is rare scoring speed.
Josh Tongue joined him on the winners list. He took 19 wickets in the Pakistan series. England’s four-man seam attack, the fast bowlers, took 56 out of 60 wickets across the three games.
Dan Lawrence was the third winner. He moved to Surrey in 2024. After Ben Stokes retired before the summer, Lawrence was picked as England’s batting all-rounder, a player chosen to contribute with bat and ball.
Lawrence made the role his own at No. 6 in the batting order. He scored three fifties in four attempts. He averaged 46.75 in Tests this summer.
Joe Root lived a stranger story. He captained England again and led the 3-0 win over Pakistan. Yet he was listed among the summer’s losers.
Root’s high score for the home summer was 77. He averaged 33.5. His previous average in home Tests was 55.52.
The problem was lbw, leg-before-wicket, where a batter is given out for blocking a ball that would have hit the stumps. Root fell lbw eight times in 11 innings, which is 73% of his dismissals. Before this summer, he had fallen lbw only 19 times in 147 innings, or 13% of his dismissals.
Gus Atkinson was the other loser in the review. He took 10 wickets in two games against New Zealand. He then managed only four wickets across the Pakistan series, although three of those came in the tourists’ last innings of the series.
What makes this stand out is the balance. England swept the series without their most famous batter firing. For fans, this means the winter debate shifts. Can Robinson stay fit, can Lawrence lock down the all-rounder spot, and can Root fix the lbw flaw?
