| Thursday, February 23, 12:41 am |
|
1st T20I - Pakistan v England
Umar Gul stars in last over win for Pakistan
 |
Malik and Misbah led the recovery for Pakistan. Malik played a good hand supported by skipper Misbah at other end. Both of them stayed till very end of the innings to make Pakistan's score reach on good total. |
England won the toss and put Pakistan to bat first. Mahommad Hafeez started the innings with debutant Awais Zia. Zia was the man who caught everyone's attention. He played like good old street smasher. He smacked couple of boundaries and hit a huge six over deep square leg off Finn's bowling. Zia got crowd going wild and shouting. Hafeez at other end was cautious in his approach, tucking ball around for single and doubles with hitting occasional boundaries.
However, entertainment ended soon with wicket of Zia. He was bluffed by a tricky slower delivery from Finn, giving a simple catch to Broad at mid off. Shafiq who was next man in established a good partnership with Hafeez but he was victim of unfortunate mix up resulting in run out! Hafeez was the next man to depart, caught deep in legside. Afridi came next to bat, and he was soon caught at shortish midwicket. Umar Akmal didn't trouble the scorers much, falling a victim of amazing catch from Dernbach.
Malik and Misbah led the recovery for Pakistan. Malik played a good hand supported by skipper Misbah at other end. Both of them stayed till very end of the innings to make Pakistan's score reach on good total.
England were chasing 145 which was par score on a good wicket. They got off to an excellent start, with the in form Kevin Pietersen toying with the bowlers. He scored a quick fire 33 off just 21 balls to take England to 48 inside the 6th over, before hitting one down the throat of deep midwicket, inches from the rope. Kieswetter was scratchy and didn't last long. Morgan, the No.1 T20 batsman at the moment looked good with his footwork and together with the newly promoted Bopara at No.3 built a decent partnership of 29 runs, before Hafeez got a fuller delivery to uproot his leg stump. Bopara on the other hand continued to play well, controlling his initial nerves to steer England, scoring 14 runs off the 14th over bowled by Junaid Khan.
England seemed to be in box seat when Gul returned to bowl the 16th over. He got Bopara out with a leg stump yorker, to throw the match wide open once again. Gul came back to bowl out his quota in the 18th over, picking up another 2 wickets and giving away just 3 runs to build the pressure. Ajmal bowled a great penultimate over, giving away just 4 runs, as Swann failed to get bat on ball. Junaid Khan is young and inexperienced but he had to defend 17 runs with England needing 18. He was good, bowling full most of the time and England managed just 9, losing the match by 8 runs. Bopara was the pick of the batsmen on the English side, scoring 39 off 32 and although Bairstow was there right until the end, unbeaten on 22, the big over never really came. Pakistan showed no nerves and were determined to put the ODI disaster behind them. Hafeez's 2/18 and Gul's 3/18 saved the day for them, after Shoaib Malik and Misbah gave them a par score to work with.
