Saud Shakeel is steadily turning into a bankable player for Pakistan in Test cricket and an evidence of the same was there for everyone to see on day two of the second Test at the Rawalpindi Cricket Ground on Friday, October 25.
The southpaw registered his fourth Test hundred on day two to help Pakistan make a strong comeback. Notably, Shakeel has become the first player from Pakistan to score 800 or more runs in the ongoing ICC World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 cycle.
Shakeel was behind Salman Ali Agha on the list of players with the most runs in the WTC 2023-25 cycle and his century on day two of the Test match helped him move past his teammate.
Salman has aggregated 744 runs in 10 games for Pakistan in the ongoing cycle with the help of two centuries and six half-centuries.
Meanwhile, Shakeel played with supreme confidence and frustrated the English bowlers. He got out after scoring 134 runs off 223 balls with the help of five fours.
Most runs for Pakistan in ICC World Test Championship 2023-25 cycle
| Player | Matches | Runs | Average | Centuries | Fifties |
| Saud Shakeel | 10 | 826 | 48.58 | 3 | 2 |
| Salman Ali Agha | 10 | 744 | 57.23 | 2 | 6 |
| Mohammad Rizwan | 8 | 636 | 53.00 | 1 | 3 |
| Shan Masood | 10 | 585 | 32.50 | 1 | 4 |
| Abdullah Shafique | 10 | 507 | 28.16 | 2 | 1 |
England’s Playing XI:
Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Ben Stokes (c), Jamie Smith (wk), Gus Atkinson, Rehan Ahmed, Jack Leach, Shoaib Bashir
Bench
Brydon Carse, Matthew Potts, Olly Stone, Chris Woakes, Jordan Cox
Support Staff
Paul Collingwood, Jeetan Patel, Neil Killeen, Brendon McCullum, Marcus Trescothick
Pakistan’s Playing XI:
Saim Ayub, Abdullah Shafique, Shan Masood (c), Kamran Ghulam, Saud Shakeel, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Agha Salman, Aamer Jamal, Noman Ali, Sajid Khan, Zahid Mahmood
Bench
Haseebullah Khan, Mohammad Ali, Mir Hamza, Mohammad Huraira, Mehran Mumtaz
Support Staff
Jason Gillespie, Azhar Mahmood
