HARARE: Fast bowler Hasan Ali registered career best figures of 5-36 to lead Pakistan to a comprehensive innings and 116 run annihilation of Zimbabwe in the first Test in Harare on Saturday.
The 26-year-old finished with 9-89 in the match as Zimbabwe’s batting crumbled for the second time in the match, all out for 134 with an hour remaining on the third day at Harare sports club.
The victory gives Pakistan a 1-0 lead in the two-match series. The second Test is also in Harare from May 7.
Zimbabwe, who were bowled out for 176 in the first innings, were facing an innings defeat at tea with the total at 118-5.
Hasan had already picked up the first wicket of the innings when he had Kevin Kasuza leg before for 28 to end a promising opening partnership of 48.
After tea he stepped up a gear as he bowled Donald Tiripano for two and Tendai Chisoro, caught in the slips off his second ball for naught, to mark his 50th wicket in Test cricket.
That opened up the tail and Hasan ripped through them too, hitting Blessing Muzarabani’s leg stump as the Zimbabwe pace bowler tried to slog his team out of trouble.
Finally, he bowled Richard Ngarava off a low full toss and with the last man Prince Masvaure unable to bat due to injury, Pakistan players celebrated the victory. Regis Chakabva remained not out on 14.
It was Hasan’s fourth five-wicket haul in 12 Tests, improving on the 5-45 he took against New Zealand in Abu Dhabi in 2018.
Spinner Nauman Ali earlier picked up the wickets of Milton Shumba and Brendan Taylor before tea to finish with 2-27.
Pakistan’s skipper Babar Azam praised Hasan and centurion Fawad Alam for Pakistan’s first-ever innings victory over Zimbabwe, 11th in 18 Tests overall.
“Hasan was outstanding in this Test and so was Alam,” said Azam, who was dismissed for a first ball duck. “It was an outstanding finish by Hasan, he has been improving with every match.”
Zimbabwe’s skipper Taylor, standing in for unfit Sean Williams, lamented poor batting.
“Getting bowled out in two sessions on day one let us down and to then field for 130 overs put us behind the eight-ball,” said Taylor. “We need to work on our batting as a group.”
In the morning Pakistan were bowled out for 426 with overnight centurion Alam the last man out for 140.
Trailing by 250 runs in the first innings, Zimbabwe were off to a solid start before Hasan ran riot.
Openers Kasuza and Tarisai Musakanda reached lunch on 36 without loss and took their partnership to 48 before Hasan provided Pakistan with the breakthrough.
Hasan, who took 4-53 in the first innings, trapped Kasuza, who had already been dropped on 15, leg before for 28 while Nauman had Shumba caught behind by Mohammed Rizwan for four.
A well-set Musakanda was run out for 43 while needlessly attempting a third run. He hit five boundaries in a fighting 84-ball knock.
First innings top scorer Roy Kaia lasted just four balls for his duck, falling leg before to Faheem Ashraf.
Stand-in skipper Taylor tried to hit his team out of trouble, smiting two fours and a six in his 29 before holing out to Hasan running back from mid-off.
Earlier, Pakistan were dismissed for 426 after resuming at a healthy 374-6 before Fawad Alam became the last man out for 140.
Alam, who was 108 not out overnight, hit 20 boundaries in his three-minute short of five-hour batting. He tried to hit Muzarabani to the leg side but edged to wicketkeeper Chakabva.
Hasan used the long handle most effectively in his 26-ball 30 which included two sixes and three boundaries.
Muzarabani finished with 4-73 while Tiripano had figures of 3-89.
Hasan leads Pakistan’s rout of Zimbabwe in first Test
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Hasan leads Pakistan’s rout of Zimbabwe in first Test
- The victory gives Pakistan a 1-0 lead in the two-match series
- Batsman Fawad Alam scored 140 before Pakistan were dismissed for 426
Pakistan, Afghanistan trade heavy casualty claims, battlefield losses as cross-border fighting escalates
- Pakistan says 133 Afghan Taliban killed in counter-strikes, Kabul says 55 Pakistani soldiers dead
- Both sides report destruction, capture of military posts as escalation deepens, signaling widening conflict
Islamabad/Karachi: Pakistan and Afghanistan traded claims of heavy battlefield losses early Friday as cross-border fighting intensified along their shared frontier, marking the most serious escalation in hostilities between the bitter neighbors in recent months.
The fighting follows Pakistani airstrikes earlier this week targeting what Islamabad said were Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Daesh militant camps inside Afghanistan. Pakistan said those strikes killed more than 100 militants, while Kabul said women and children were killed and condemned the attacks as violations of Afghan sovereignty.
With both governments now announcing retaliatory operations and publishing sharply conflicting casualty figures, the confrontation signals a rapid deterioration in relations between the two countries.
Pakistani officials said the latest strikes were in response to what they described as unprovoked firing by Afghan forces along multiple sectors of the border late Thursday. The Pakistani prime minister’s spokesman Mosharraf Zaidi said at 0345 hours Friday counter-strikes were continuing.
“A total of 133 Afghan Taliban are confirmed killed, more than 200 wounded,” Zaidi said in an X update. “Twenty seven (27) Afghan Taliban posts have been destroyed, and nine (9) have been captured.”
He added that strikes had targeted military positions in Kabul, Paktia and Kandahar, and that corps headquarters, brigade headquarters, ammunition depots, logistics bases and other installations had been destroyed.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar described the military action as “Operation Wrath for the Sake of Truth,” saying Pakistan’s “effective counter operations are ongoing.”
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif adopted sharply escalatory language on X, declaring: “Now it is open war between us and you.”
On the Afghan side, Taliban government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid accused Pakistan of bombing major cities.
“The cowardly Pakistani army has bombed some places in Kabul, Kandahar, and Paktia. Praise be to God, no one was harmed,” Mujahid said on X.
In a separate statement, Afghanistan’s Ministry of National Defense said its forces had conducted retaliatory operations along the shared border.
The ministry claimed 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed, two garrisons and 19 posts captured and military equipment seized. It said eight Afghan fighters were killed and 11 wounded in the clashes, and alleged that 13 civilians were injured in Nangarhar.
Pakistani officials said no Pakistani posts had been damaged or captured.
None of the casualty figures or battlefield claims from either side could be independently verified.
Cross-border violence has intensified in recent weeks, with Pakistan blaming a surge in suicide bombings and militant attacks on insurgents it says are based in Afghanistan. Kabul denies providing safe havens to anti-Pakistan militant groups.
The latest clashes mark the third major escalation between the neighbors in less than a year. Similar Pakistani strikes last year triggered weeklong fighting before Qatar, Türkiye and other regional actors mediated a ceasefire in October.
The 2,600-kilometer (1,600-mile) frontier, a key trade and transit corridor linking Pakistan to landlocked Afghanistan and onward to Central Asia, has faced repeated closures amid tensions, disrupting commerce and humanitarian movement. Trade and movement of people between the two nations has remained closed since October 2025.
The confrontation also unfolds against a backdrop of growing friction over Afghanistan’s regional alignments. Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Taliban authorities of allowing Indian influence to expand in Afghanistan, an allegation Kabul has rejected.
Pakistan’s defense minister Asif renewed that accusation on Friday, saying the Taliban government had turned Afghanistan into “a colony of India.”
Islamabad has long accused India of using Afghan territory to support anti-Pakistan militant groups, a charge New Delhi denies.
