 England will play Pakistan in the second T20I of the two game series at Cardiff.
England won the first T20I and lead the series 1-0, and a win here will ensure
that they win their seventh successive T20I. England had earlier won five
games in the World T20 and one here in this series.
England did win the first T20I against Pakistan, but they will be the
first to admit that they got out of the jail in the match. They were left to
chase only 127 for a win, but the side was in strife as they lost half their
side for 62 in the tenth over. At this stage, it looked like the side could
have lost the game, and had Shoaib Akhtar not dropped a relatively simple chance
of Eoin Morgan at that stage, the game could well have been Pakistan's for the
taking.
Click for Live Score Card of England Vs PakistanPakistan, on the other hand, looked unsurprisingly rusty. The batting was deep
enough and yet, they lost only four wickets in scoring 126 runs in the game.
One would have expected the Pakistani side to have scored many more than that,
especially given that the side had Abdul Razzaq waiting in the ranks,
ready to explode, but the batting of Fawad Alam seemed to have hurt the side
a lot.
What both sides will need to look at for the next game is their batting. For
one, England realise that their squad has only 3 main batsmen, and that inexperience
could well hurt them. They will need to not take too many risks at the start
and then go after the bowling towards the end of the innings - as compared to
what they did in the first T20I.
Pakistan, on the other hand, have another option. They can probably drop a
bowler, given that they went into the previous match with six bowlers - five
regular and one part-timer. The one bowler who could bite the dust is Abdul
Razzaq, or the team may want to get in Azhar Ali in place of Alam himself.
Speaking of which, the side will also need to put the controversies related
to match-fixing behind them and try and focus on the game. Shahid Afridi
had given the advice to his team to not read the newspaper but was critical
of his team-mate Yasir Hameed of having brains of a 12-year old. Clearly, that
does not set a great precedence and could affect the morale of the side.
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