England begin the third and final Test of their series against Pakistan at Edgbaston on September 9 already holding an unassailable lead. Two comprehensive wins in the first two matches have left Joe Root's side chasing a series whitewash, against a Pakistan squad reshaped by selectors after the second Test defeat rather than the same group that started the tour.
England's dominance has been built on fast bowling depth. In the series-opener at Headingley, Ollie Robinson and Josh Tongue shared eight wickets each across the match as Pakistan were bowled out for 135 and beaten by an innings and 103 runs inside three days — the joint-second fastest win of Root's 66-match tenure as captain. At Lord's, England backed up that statement with a 194-run win, restricting Pakistan to totals of 110 and 194 either side of their own scores of 290 and 208. Both results came inside four days, leaving Pakistan with almost no periods of sustained control across either Test.
The scale of the defeats prompted a significant response from Pakistan's selectors, who dropped seven players from the squad on August 31 following the Lord's loss. Babar Azam continues as captain, but the squad arriving at Edgbaston looks materially different from the one that began the tour, a sign selectors are already using this dead-rubber Test to trial combinations with next assignments in mind rather than simply defending the status quo.
England, by contrast, have made no equivalent shake-up, naming a 15-player squad built around the same core that has delivered the first two wins — Ben Duckett, Harry Brook, Jamie Smith, Gus Atkinson, Jofra Archer and the returning Ollie Pope among the names retained. Root's decision to stick largely with what has worked reflects a team playing with the pressure already off, free to use the final Test to build form and depth ahead of the winter rather than to chase a result that is no longer needed.
Analysis: a reshuffled, under-pressure Pakistan side facing a settled England attack that has taken 16 wickets in two Tests without needing to labour for them is about as lopsided a matchup as this series has offered. The genuine cricketing question for Edgbaston isn't really who wins — it's whether any of Pakistan's newer names can produce the kind of individual performance that survives the series result as a positive takeaway, the way a promising debut or a fighting fifty often outlasts a scoreline nobody remembers precisely. For England, a clean sweep would be the tidier story, but the bigger value of this Test is what it reveals about depth beyond the attack that has already done the job twice.
Play at Edgbaston runs through September 13. Ball-by-ball updates are available on SportGod's live matches page, with more international cricket coverage on SportGod's blog and fantasy contests running in SportGod's free games.
Series results, squad details and the Headingley and Lord's match figures are verified against same-day tour coverage, current as of September 9, 2026.
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