Fakhar's 127, the Minhas-Nawaz stand of 94 and Shaheen's last-ball six: Pakistan's win never belonged to one name

Pakistan chased down Sri Lanka's 326 with three wickets in hand, but the win did not arrive the way it had looked likely for the first 41 overs of the Sri Lankan innings. When the match reached its final over, Pakistan needed two runs with seven wickets down — Minhas and Faheem Ashraf had fallen in consecutive deliveries. Shaheen Afridi then cleared the boundary to finish it. Reducing this victory to that one shot, or to Fakhar Zaman's 127, would leave the story incomplete. After Pakistan slipped to 14/2, the chase was carried by three different hands: a 19-year-old batter hours away from his 20th birthday, a senior opener who was dropped three times, and a partnership of 94 that turned a difficult chase into a manageable one — though not a finished one. Babar Azam fell for a duck inside the first four overs, having gone nine innings without a half-century. The chase was widely expected to need a Babar special; it got nothing. Saad Baig's 74 — his maiden international fifty, on the eve of his birthday — provided the stabiliser. Fakhar made 127, reaching fifty off 52 balls and his century off 84, but he was dropped on 6, 69 and 106, with Maheesh Theekshana putting down two of those chances. Sri Lanka were 255/2 after 41 overs. Kamindu Mendis made 131 — more than double his previous career best, seven years after his ODI debut — and Pavan Rathnayake made 77, the pair anchoring stands of 87 and 146. Then Sri Lanka lost six wickets for 70 runs in the last nine overs to finish on 325/8. Shaheen removed both Kamindu and Shanaka and slowed the scoring rate; Haris Rauf took two late wickets with short-pitched bowling; Minhas's left-arm spin was expensive. Pakistan's reply was rebuilt by Fakhar and Saad Baig, but the decisive passage was the 94-run stand between Minhas and Nawaz for the sixth wicket. Pakistan needed 46 from 30 balls at one stage, took 15 from a single over, and then required 31 from 24. With two runs needed, Minhas and Faheem fell in quick succession before Shaheen's six settled it. The reporting around this match is heavily weighted towards batting: every batting figure is available, while bowling figures — overs, economy, returns — are almost entirely absent. Shaheen is credited with turning the match without a single number attached; Minhas's spin is called expensive without saying how expensive. The headline that frames the result as one man denying Sri Lanka sits awkwardly against a scorecard that distributes the credit across Fakhar's 127, Saad Baig's 74, the Minhas-Nawaz stand and Shaheen's double contribution with ball and bat.