Aamir Jamal seals Pakistan victory in fifth T20 as England slip up in run chase

England slipped to their third defeat of the series when they ended up six runs shy of Pakistan’s modest total of 145. It was a steamy evening in Lahore, on a skiddy, tricky pitch, and none of England’s batsmen seemed able to get comfortable in conditions that felt very different to the ones they had experienced in Karachi.

Phil Salt, Alex Hales, and Ben Duckett were all caught in the deep inside the first five overs, and then the middle order was throttled by Pakistan’s three spinners. The dismissals were as thick as the flies that filled the night skies. Some thicker.

Moeen Ali was able to stretch the game into the final over, and in the end it all came down to whether he could hit 15 off the last six balls, bowled by the 26-year-old debutant Aamir Jamal. He couldn’t.

It felt like England had picked their strongest XI of the series: Dawid Malan, Sam Curran and Mark Wood were all back, and so was Chris Woakes. He had only played one second XI match for Warwickshire since he last turned out for England, in the third Test against the West Indies last March, but slipped back into his old role of opening the bowling after England won the toss.

Woakes, Curran, Wood and David Willey split eight wickets between them. Among England’s bowlers only Adil Rashid, who conceded 41 in his four overs, struggled to make an impression. It felt like a seamer’s pitch until Pakistan started bowling on it.

Shadab Khan, who was one of three changes Pakistan made, gave a lesson in how to go about it in the second half of the game, when he bowled four overs for 25. He also took a key wicket, when he had Malan lbw with one that shot straight on.

Wood was the best of England’s quicks. He took wickets in each of his first three overs, Babar Azam