Arafat Minhas is only 21 but is making international cricket look easy. He rescued Pakistan with the bat in Rawalpindi, took six wickets with his left-arm orthodox, and then sealed an impressive 87-run win with a direct-hit run-out; after scooping up his second player-of-the-match award in only his fifth ODI, he probably drove the team bus back to the hotel for good measure.

Minhas became only the third Pakistan player after Shahid Afridi (three times) and Abdul Razzaq to score a fifty and take five wickets in the same ODI. "He is a very good talent," Shaheen Shah Afridi, his captain, said effusively. "He's not a bowling allrounder, or a batting allrounder; he is a proper allrounder… Hopefully, he will deliver for us in many more games."

His performance was as tenacious as they come. When Minhas walked in at No. 7, Pakistan were 133 for 5 in the 28th over, and knew they needed a strong finish with dew anticipated in the run-chase; when he came into the attack as the sixth bowler used, England were cruising at 117 for 1 after 18 overs, with Tom Banton and Joe Root both set in pursuit of 303.

He dragged them back into the game in both instances, adding 78 with Hasan Nawaz and 72 with Faheem Ashraf before running through England's middle-order. He rode his luck at times with the bat - Jordan Cox missed two tough chances, and Banton misjudged his throw to Ben Duckett for an attempted relay catch - but was rewarded for his determination.

Minhas dug deep, looking only to get Nawaz back on strike early in his innings, but having reached 17 off 28 balls, he accelerated to 59 off 58. He picked Sam Curran's slower balls and launched him for three fours in an over, then cracked Sonny Baker through the off side - an obvious strong zone, with seven of his nine boundaries through the cover/mid-off arc - three balls in a row.

The best was yet to come. If his first wicket - Banton crunching a drag-down straight to short midwicket - was a freebie, then his second was a left-arm spinner's dream: drifting in from around the wicket to pitch on middle-and-leg, before turning sharply off the straight, past Harry Brook's outside edge, and crashing into the top of his off stump.

Brook looked flummoxed. He tends to fill his boots in Pakistan, the scene of a breakout season in the PSL, an international breakthrough in England's T20 team, his maiden Test hundred, and an outstanding triple-hundred, but not tonight. He had never previously been bowled by a spinner in an ODI but, for once, his outstanding hand-eye co-ordination let him down.

"Is he only 21? I didn't know that," Brook said after, when asked about Minhas's virtuoso efforts. "He was the standout performer by a mile… I've played a lot of cricket out here in Pakistan, and I know that it usually just skids on. I hold my hands up to him: he was the better performer on the day."

The Hawk-Eye projection made clear just how much the ball had deviated on a surface where few others turned all evening. It was not as simple as playing for spin, as Cox later discovered: he was beaten on the inside edge, pinned on the pad, and given out lbw as England's chase descended into freefall.

There were some cheap wickets thereafter: Jamie Overton holed out to long-on, Will Jacks picked out short midwicket, and Adil Rashid was pinned on the front pad. Baker survived the hat-trick ball, but a mix-up left Gus Atkinson diving in vain as Minhas fumbled a throw, regained his composure, and threw the stumps down.

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Minhas has been on Pakistan's radar for some time, graduating the Under-19s and Shaheens programmes and performing well for Multan Sultans in the PSL. But few predicted he would make such an impression: "We hadn't imagined he would start as well as he has," Mike Hesson, their head coach, conceded in June. "He's shown with bat, ball, and in the field that he's ready to go."

He was one of the seven players summoned to England by the PCB in September for Pakistan's third Test at Edgbaston, though did not play, and ended up in Japan a few weeks later for the Asian Games; Pakistan were well beaten in the gold-medal match by India, but he held his own with 2 for 25 in three overs, dismissing Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan.

The natural worry about any young player in Pakistan is that the dysfunction of the PCB - and, as a result, of the system it oversees - is hardly conducive to turning promise into sustained performance. Minhas's early success should guarantee him a long run in this side as they build towards next year's 50-over World Cup, but nothing is certain in Pakistan.

Yet whatever lies ahead, Minhas is a hugely talented allrounder who plays with the maturity of a seasoned international; and if you don't believe it, just ask Brook.