At last we had a complete match at the mercy of the Rain God and to spectators delight it was a proper T20 run-fest. With the required rate of 10 an over, England paced their innings superbly and never looked uncomfortable in the chase. Bairstow(44) and Banton(20) provided the initial thrust and Morgan(66) and Malan(54) built on that further to take England home. Pakistan put on a competitive total of 195 on the back of Azam(56) and Hafeez’s(69) half centuries. However, except for Shadab Khan(3/34), none of the bowlers could apply breaks to England scoring and they got to the target with 5 balls to spare.
The Hafeez show
Eoin Morgan won the toss and asked his counterpart to bat first. Pakistan got off to a flying start with Fakhar Zaman and captain Babar Azam able to pierce the gaps at regular interval. They scored 51 under field restrictions. Zaman mistimed a Rashid slider, trying to repeat the shot that fetched him six earlier, and got caught at long on. Hafeez came to join Babar, who completed his half-century off 37 balls with back to back boundaries off Rashid on either side of the wicket. But Rashid in his next over accounted for Babar, who could not put a short one past the midwicket boundary and holed out to Billings.
Hafeez kept the scoreboard ticking with regular boundaries and sixes. He favoured the square leg region a bit more as all of his four big ones were scored in that region. He was particularly severe on Tom Curran taking out 23 of his 3rd over that features two sixes and a four. He brought hsi fifty in 26 balls with a scoop over short fine leg off Mahmood’s bowling. Before departing on the penultimate ball of the innings he scored 69 off 36 that comprised of five 4s and four 6s. This took Pakistan to an eventual score of 195/4, setting a daunting target ahead for English batsmen.
The Run Chase
After seeing off the first Imad Wasim over, England began their attack from the next over itself when Bairstow sent Afridi to boundary twice. Banton began the third over with a ridiculous shot- a switch hit sweep that carried the ball all the way to the boundary. They continued in the same flow and scored 65 without loss in the powerplay with the trio of Wasim, Afridi and Amir going for plenty. The first over post powerplay brought some relief to Pakistan camp as they got rid of both the openers in the same over. Shadab Khan got both Bairstow and Banton off successive balls with both attempting to sweep. Bairstow was caught at square leg while Banton was caught in front of stumps unable to make contact. He almost got Morgan in the same over but umpire’s call on impact did not go in his favour.
Morgan came out of the hiccup soon and continued his rich vein of form with clean hits for fours and sixes. There was no respite from the other end either as Malan too joined the party with regular boundaries. Both forged a hundred runs partnership in no time and almost bagged the game for their team. They got to their individual milestones of half centuries in the way. By the time Morgan was dismissed, being caught at deep fine leg off Rauf, match was all but lost for Pakistan. Run-a-ball was needed off last two overs but Billings hit Rauf for two boundaries and England easily sailed home. Eoin Morgan was adjudged Man of the Match for his terrific innings of 66 runs, striking at 200, with four 6s and six boundaries.