Reporting snapshot · 12 November 2026 (Asia/Karachi). The Test is still live: Pakistan were 39 for 1 at lunch in their second innings, and the figures here are the fourth day's play as reported, not a final result. No ICC report of the fourth day had appeared when this was written, so the innings figures are those carried by the day-four reports and by the [official match record](https://www.icc-cricket.com/tournaments/world-test-championship/matches/274140/pakistan-vs-sri-lanka).
Debutant fast bowler Saqib Khan took seven wickets for 130 runs and had Sri Lanka bowled out for 446 on the fourth day of the first Test at Rawalpindi on Thursday, 12 November, handing Pakistan a 12-run first-innings lead in a match that had been slipping away from them the previous evening. Geo News reported that the visitors lost their last six wickets for 42 runs, and The Express Tribune recorded that Saqib finished with seven for 130 from 34 overs.
Sri Lanka began the day on 404 for 4, with Dhananjaya de Silva unbeaten on 167 and their captain Kusal Mendis unbeaten on 117. The pair had put together an unbroken 249-run stand for the fifth wicket — a record for Sri Lanka against Pakistan, improving on the 207 by Thilan Samaraweera and Tillakaratne Dilshan in Lahore in 2009 — and Mendis’s century was the first by a Sri Lankan on his maiden Test as captain, Geo News reported. De Silva’s was his 14th Test hundred, his fourth against Pakistan and his second at the ground. The ICC’s account of the third day noted that bowlers from both sides had struggled to find assistance from the Rawalpindi pitch, and Pakistan had declared their first innings at 434 for 9 on the second day.
The seven that broke the stand
Saqib broke the partnership first, removing de Silva for 167 and then Kusal Mendis for 119 as Sri Lanka lost two wickets for eight runs, The Express Tribune reported. He followed with the wickets of Sonal Dinusha, Lahiru Kumara and Asitha Fernando to complete his spell, and Sri Lanka were bowled out for 446 in 117.2 overs with Milan Rathnayake making 12.
It was not a sudden intervention. Saqib had taken two early wickets on the second day and had gone into the third evening with figures of two for 105 from 26 overs, The Express Tribune noted. Geo News listed the completed innings figures: Saqib seven, Mohammad Abbas two and Razaullah one, which is every wicket Sri Lanka lost. The same report recorded that Razaullah, with 127 runs conceded from 23 overs, had been the most expensive of Pakistan’s bowlers.
The stand that fell had been built on a reprieve. De Silva was dropped on 38 by Saud Shakeel off Razaullah, Geo News reported, and he and Kusal Mendis then held the crease for 249 runs, the longest fifth-wicket stand Sri Lanka have made against Pakistan, past the 207 by Thilan Samaraweera and Tillakaratne Dilshan in Lahore in 2009.
Mohammad Abbas had said on Wednesday evening, in the ICC’s report of the day, that the bowlers needed to “get them out quickly for a fightback”. Twenty-four hours later the fightback had produced the only spell of the innings that changed it.
Twelve runs on a friendly pitch
Pakistan’s reply was cautious. Asitha Fernando dismissed Tayyab Arif for 11 in the second over of the fourth innings, and at lunch Pakistan were 39 for 1 — a lead of 27 runs — with Azan Awais on 16 and Mohammad Taha on 12, according to The Express Tribune. Arif was one of the four players handed a Test debut in this match.
Twelve runs is a thin advantage, and it sits on a surface that has already produced 434 for Pakistan and 446 for Sri Lanka. The ICC’s third-day assessment, that neither attack had found much to work with in the Rawalpindi pitch, points to a fourth innings scored on much the same conditions. The first Test runs to Friday, 13 November, and a lead that thin will be settled in the last two sessions of batting.
What the spell says about a rebuilt attack
Saqib’s seven closes a question the selectors asked when they rebuilt this side. He was one of four additions to Pakistan’s squad on 7 November, and the ICC’s summary of that announcement recorded that he finished the 2025-26 Quaid-e-Azam Trophy with 47 wickets in nine matches at an average of 20.60, the ICC reported. The Express Tribune noted that Pakistan also used the spinners Arafat Minhas and Salman Ali Agha but that they did not trouble the Sri Lankan batters, on a day when the new fast bowler did the damage.
A second Test at the same ground
The second Test follows immediately, and the ICC’s schedule has it at Rawalpindi from 17 to 21 November, after the Pakistan Cricket Board moved it from the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore because of the smog over Punjab. This was the opening World Test Championship contest of the cycle for both sides, and Rawalpindi will now stage both matches.
That makes the two Tests in Rawalpindi a dress rehearsal and the event itself. Pakistan are using the series to blood a side rebuilt after seven players and two coaches were removed after a heavy defeat in England, and the first Test has already produced a maiden Test fifty from Arafat Minhas, half-centuries from the debutant batters Tayyab Arif and Mohammad Taha, and now a seven-wicket haul from a debutant fast bowler. Pakistan’s captain said before the series that the side was almost out of the current championship cycle and that these players were being prepared for the next one. KhabarWire is following the campaign in its Pakistan Cricket hub.
