Iceland Cricket's brutal dig at Pakistan: Babar Azam and Co.'s fight vs England in 2nd innings of 3rd Test gives 'hope' to minnows Iceland

Iceland Cricket's brutal dig at Pakistan: Babar Azam and Co.'s fight vs England in 2nd innings of 3rd Test gives 'hope' to minnows Iceland originally appeared on Cricket News. Add Cricket News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

Iceland Cricket mocked Pakistan's tour, joking that Pakistan's fight in the third Test gave their nation hope for cricketing domination by 2082.

Joe Root's unbeaten 62 and Jordan Cox's 59 helped England chase 130 with eight wickets in hand to complete a historic 3-0 whitewash.

Pakistan's tour was marred by off-field chaos, including seven squad replacements, a coaching sack, and 16 defeats in their last 21 Tests.

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Iceland Cricket trolls Pakistan: Edgbaston 2nd innings rearguard vs England gives hope to minnows

It takes a special kind of collapse to give Iceland cricket hope, and Pakistan managed it on the final day at Edgbaston as England wrapped up a historic 3-0 Test series whitewash.

Razaullah Khan made sure that Pakistan avoided an innings defeat with a brisk 81, and his efforts allowed the visitors to come out with the ball again. The Three Lions were chasing just 130 for victory, and England looked like they'd make light work of it. Then Pakistan reminded everyone, briefly, that this isn't over until it's over.

Mohammad Abbas removed Ben Duckett on the very first delivery of the innings, and the same over claimed Emilio Gay as well. Two for two, and Pakistan had somehow managed to put England under pressure when they needed 130 with ten wickets in hand.

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From there, Joe Root and Jordan Cox absorbed the pressure, settled into their work, and gradually shut Pakistan out of the contest. Root survived a significant let-off when Mohammad Ali bowled him for 23, only for the umpire to call a no-ball; the 17th no-ball Ali had bowled in the series alone.

Root was on 38 when he edged Abbas between first and second slip, but neither fielder committed to the catch. Pakistan's brief window of opportunity slipped away in those moments, and England never looked back.

Root finished unbeaten on 62, his 110th Test innings of fifty or more, including 41 centuries, while Cox remained not out on 59 as England got there in the 25th over with eight wickets in hand.

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Root, speaking after the victory, acknowledged that Pakistan had made life difficult in the second innings, but turned it into a learning point rather than a complaint.

"Fair play to Pakistan, they threw some punches last night," he said. "They made it very difficult for us and in some ways it's a good thing to go through that."

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Iceland Cricket lands the sharpest social media dig of the series

Iceland Cricket's reaction to all of this was perhaps the most entertaining commentary.

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They wrote on X: "We believe we won't be hopeless at cricket forever, and Pakistan's fight in the Third Test gave us exactly that hope. We aim for world cricketing domination by the year 2082. If we can do it sooner than then, we will, because our Board will all be dead in 2082."

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The result was Pakistan's 16th loss in their last 21 Tests, and it came at the end of a tour that was as chaotic off the pitch as it was demoralising on it. Seven players were removed from the squad after the second Test, head coach Sarfaraz Ahmed and assistant Umar Gul were both sacked, and the camp was hit by a disciplinary inquiry involving phone confiscations. The entire episode became a story unto itself.

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Babar Azam, reflecting on the match, pointed to the first innings batting as the root cause of their peril, which was a fair enough assessment given the team were bowled out for 133 on the best surface of the series.

"We had a couple of good moments. I think we have bowled well, but I think the first innings cost us. Too many soft dismissals," he said.

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Pakistan's summer is a cautionary tale with no quick fix

A whitewash against England, combined with a chaotic internal overhaul, a disciplinary investigation, and a captain who found out about his own squad changes from a press release.

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That's not only a bad run of form, but a systemic failure of planning, communication and culture all arriving at once.

The Iceland joke landed because it contained a kernel of truth that's uncomfortable for Pakistan cricket to sit with. Things have come to such a pass that even a minnow nation could look at that second innings fight and see it as aspirational.

When a team's most memorable moment of a tour is a spirited lower-order innings in a match they still lost by eight wickets, something has gone wrong at a structural level that no coaching change or player reshuffle can fix quickly.

Pakistan need a coherent long-term plan, and right now, they don't appear to have one. England's 3-0 scoreline is the loudest possible evidence of that.

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