Jos Buttler and England’s spinners starred against Pakistan to level the IT20 series at Headingly.
Batting first, Jason Roy set the tone as he so often does, hitting the second ball of the match for an enormous six, followed quickly by a four and a wicket. England’s stutter continued as Dawid Malan continued his horrible run of form, departing to Imad Wasim, for just a single.
His dismissal brought Moeen Ali to the crease to join skipper-for-the-day Buttler, and they set about dismantling the Pakistan bowlers, adding 67 from just 33 balls. Buttler is perhaps *the* form opener in world cricket and it showed from ball one, anchoring the innings whilst keeping a strike rate above 150. Moeen had been in more shaky form (putting it mildly) but looked comfortable from ball one, timing the ball through the off-side in majestic fashion at times. Moeen then slog swept a delivery from Shadab Khan into the stands before being foxed by a clever slower ball from Mohammad Hasnain.
If Pakistan thought this would bring some respite, they were sorely mistaken as in walked Liam Livingstone, maker of the fastest international T20 Hundred for England. Livingstone started in a relatively circumspect manner, before hitting the ball straight down the ground, clearing the new stand in Leeds by quite some distance.
Buttler and Livingstone were dismissed with nearly five overs remaining, leaving Tom Curran, Chris Jordan and the remaining tail to scrabble itself to 200.
Chris Jordan hit a six, and Tom Curran a further boundary as England rather limped to 200 all-out with a ball to spare, in perhaps the most on-brand end to an innings possible. Matt Parkinson hacked a boundary over backward-point to reach 200, and was bowled backing away from the very next delivery from Shaheen Afridi (the pick of the bowlers).
Babar Azam (career IT20 average of 48) and Mohammad Rizwan (averaging over 100 for the year) got to work early, scoring 50 runs from the powerplay, before England’s spinners put the chokehold on the innings. Adil Rashid ripped a ball past Sohaib Maqsood’s outside edge to see him stumped by Buttler, and later had Rizwan caught and bowled to a wonderful one-handed return catch. Moeen Ali returned to pick up the wickets of Mohammad Hafeez (first ball of the over) and to completely outwit Fakhar Zaman in the flight (4th ball of the over). With Pakistan 6 down it was only a matter of time, with nothing but some stiff lower order resistance from Shadab Khan halting the party. Rashid (2 for 30), Moeen (2 for 32), Parkinson (1 for 25), Curran (1 for 22) and Mahmood (3 for 33) shared the wickets and completed a clinical bowling performance.
Pakistan will rue their tactics, picking just one leg spinner on a turning surface, picking Shadab to come in at number 8, and sending in Mohammad Hafeez to face up to 5 overs of spin, but will take heart from the late pyrotechnics of Shadab, and Shaheen’s tight bowling.
England are still without their strongest IT20 line-up, without Ben Stokes, Jofra Archer and Mark Wood (to say nothing of David Willey, Chris Woakes or Sam Curran) who all take this side up a level.
The third IT20 between these sides takes place on Tuesday 20th July at 18:30.
Image credit: David Molloy on flickr, Creative Commons 2.0
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Michael Vince on Sport 