England completed a first home series whitewash of Pakistan in Test cricket on September 12-13, 2026, sealing an eight-wicket win in the third and final Test at Edgbaston to finish the series 3-0. Chasing a modest target of 130, England survived a wobble on the fourth morning before Joe Root and Jordan Cox added an unbroken 128-run stand to carry the hosts home well inside four days.
A nervy start to the chase
Set 130 to win after Pakistan were bowled out for 133 in their second innings, England looked to have the simplest of tasks. Instead, the hosts slipped to 2 for 2 inside the first over of the chase when Mohammad Abbas, bowling with venom on a fresh Edgbaston surface, had Ben Duckett edging behind before trapping Emilio Gay leg-before in the same over. For a few tense minutes, Pakistan sensed an opening. Abbas finished with 2 for 27 in the innings, a display that briefly threatened to drag the tourists back into a match that had otherwise slipped away from them.
Root and Cox close it out
Any anxiety was short-lived. Root and Cox came together and simply refused to be shifted, adding 128 runs without being separated to finish the job in the opening session of day four. Root ended unbeaten on 62, Cox on 59, as England reached 133 for 2 well before lunch — winning with five sessions still in hand. It was the kind of clinical finish captains want to see after a shaky start, and it wrapped up the match inside four days at a ground that has hosted some of England’s most dramatic Test finishes.
Robinson’s series haul seals the whitewash
The individual honors for the series went to seamer Ollie Robinson, who was named player of the series after taking 21 wickets at an average of 8.76 across the three Tests. Robinson had set up the Edgbaston win with 3 for 15 in Pakistan’s first innings, part of a collapse that left the visitors to 133 all out and handed England control of the match from the first day. His returns across the series were among the most dominant by an England seamer in a home series in recent memory.
Root’s first series as captain, and the context behind it
The 3-0 sweep was notable for arriving in Root’s first series in charge of the Test side, following Ben Stokes’s retirement from the captaincy in June 2026 and the departure of head coach Brendon McCullum before the series began. Root, speaking after the win, pointed to the turbulence England had absorbed on the way to the result: “The amount of uncertainty, noise and chaos there was coming into the series, the way the guys have dealt with that has been really pleasing. We were clinical towards the back end there, a big partnership to see us home.” For a squad that had been widely questioned after the coaching and leadership upheaval, a clean sweep answered plenty of the doubts in the most direct way possible.
A brutal away record deepens for Pakistan
For Pakistan, the result extends a difficult run on the road that now reads 11 losses in their last 12 away Tests, and 15 defeats in their last 20 Tests overall. Abbas’s fourth-day burst was one of the few sustained periods where Pakistan’s bowling matched the conditions, but the batting order was repeatedly exposed across the series, with the collapse to 133 in the second innings at Edgbaston symptomatic of a broader struggle to build partnerships against a disciplined England attack. The tour raises familiar questions for Pakistan’s team management about depth, especially in seam bowling support for Abbas, and about how quickly the batting group can be rebuilt before their next assignment.
What comes next
England will not play another Test until a three-match tour of South Africa that is scheduled to begin on December 17, giving Root time to build on the momentum of a first series in the job while the board considers a permanent successor to McCullum in the coaching role. Pakistan, meanwhile, return home to a cricket structure under fresh scrutiny, with the away-form crisis likely to dominate discussion ahead of their next Test commitments. For now, Edgbaston belongs to England, and to a captain who arrived under pressure and left with a clean sweep.