Key events
WICKET! Babar Azam b Overton 25 (Pakistan 73-3)
Under pressure to get on with it, Babar unloads the suitcase at a straight one that perhaps doesn’t bounce as much as he expected it. Even so, though, his heave across the line is is ugly as, and the ball crashes into the top of off.
11th over: Pakistan 73-2 (Farhan 34, Babar 25) Overton returns, presumably to finagle a cheap over before returning at the death, and increasingly, this is looking like a good toss to lose: had England batted first, they’d have been swinging hard whereas now, Pakistan are showing them how to play on this surface. Three singles from four balls up the pressure…
10th over: Pakistan 70-2 (Farhan 32, Babar 24) Babar forces down the ground and they run the first one too slowly so miss out on the second. Rashid then tries one so slowly it’s almost going backwards … before injecting pace into a wrongun which Babar doesn’t pick, driving into his own pad. Two singles complete an over which yields just four, and this is very good work from England.
9th over: Pakistan 66-2 (Farhan 30, Babar 22) Dawson continues and Pakistan are letting him bowl; surely they need to look for boundaries in the immediate future? After two singles, Babar tries a heave to midwicket, but doesn’t get enough of it, so earns just two, and the over is completed with a dot, a one and a dot. So far, this is going extremely well for England: they’ve not got into the meat of the middle order yet, but whatever happens, chances are they’ll not be chasing a monster.
8th over: Pakistan 61-2 (Farhan 29, Babar 18) A key moment in the match: Adil Rashid is into the attack, beginning with a half-tracking wide. Two singles follow, as the bowler searches for his ideal pace on this deck, then Babar takes two and one into the leg side.
7th over: Pakistan 55-2 (Farhan 28, Babar 14) Curran into the attack and Babar takes his first two deliveries for two and one – he’s starting to look confident. For reasons unknown, my coverage then cuts out, returning in time for me to see Farhan clobber down the ground for four. I think England will like what they’re seeing from this surface – the pace will suit their batters, though it’ll also be encouraging for Afridi.
6th over: Pakistan 46-2 (Farhan 23, Babar 10) Bowling full of length, Dawson cramps Farhan with two deliveries, then an inside-edge bisects the men at fine land square leg, rushing away for four. A slog-sweep then adds two, Bethell doing well to redeem his earlier error with a diving, sliding stop … and that is drinks.
5th over: Pakistan 40-2 (Farhan 17, Babar 10) Archer’s first three deliveries go for singles, the batters struggling with his pace – and I think his action, suddenly bursting into speed from right close to the stumps, is a contributing factor. Babar, though, looks much better in twizzling a pull to the midwicket fence then, next ball, he waits before deflecting four more through backward point; shot. Eleven off the over, and much better from Pakistan, who’ve probably seen off Archer for the now.
4th over: Pakistan 29-2 (Farhan 15, Babar 1) Ba ba ba, Babar Azam gets away via single, then Farhan adds another; England will be thinking one more wicket and they’re really in among it.
WICKET! Salman Agha c Overton b Dawson 5 (Pakistan 27-2)
There’s a bit of panic about the way Pakistan are batting and Salman flogs Dawson high into the hair, Overton galumphing in from long-on … to take a smart low catch on the slide. Naturally, the PA immediately fires up YMCA.
4th over: Pakistan 27-1 (Farhan 14, Salman 5) Dawson into the attack and Salman swipes his loosener to deep midwicket, Bethell chasing after it, missing his drag-back then bumping ball over fence for four. Whoops.
3rd over: Pakistan 23-1 (Farhan 14, Salman 1) Archer welcomes Salman to the crease with a beauty of a beast, short, lifting, and cracking the batter in the sternum. That did not look pleasant, and the delivery which follows has plenty of bounce too, Buttler doing well to save byes. An edged single follows, pace really kicking up now, and Farhan mini-panics, giving himself room before inside-edging four past his stumps; this is developing into a serious spell. But off the final ball of the over, the batter clouts towards the fence at deep square, Salt chases around the balcony, hurls himself full-length … and lands just short, unable to prevent the boundary-four.
“You had me ROFLing with the statement ‘If the ICC had any sense’,” says Krishnamoorthy V. “Up there among a Sensible Trump and an Ethical Fifa.”
WICKET! Saim Ayub c Bethell b Archer 7 (Pakistan 14-1)
Short from Archer, it gets a little big on Siam, and he toe-ends his pull high in the air for Bethell to snaffle at deep backward square.
2nd over: Pakistan 14-0 (Farhan 6, Saim 7) Overton’s first delivery offers width, so Farhan flings hands, lashing four uppishly through point. A pull to Bethell at deep square adds one more, then Saim flicks to midwicket for two; a wide follows, then a drive to deep square for a further single.
1st over: Pakistan 5-0 (Farhan 1, Saim 4) Decent nip from Archer, the pitch offering a bit more movement and bounce. After two dots, Farhan clearly desperate to get off the mark – he’s sent back, then misses with a waft – he paddles to deep point for one. This brings Saim on to strike, who looks to turn into the on side a ball that moves away from him … then steps down and cracks over third man for a one-bounce four, a much better shot, using the direction of the ball to his advantage.
Out come the batters. I can’t wait to see what Jofra Archer makes of a pitch with juice i it.
The teams emerge, then the officials, walking through a guard of fireworks, stirring muzak playing, because how else can import be communicated? Anthem time.
The stands are pretty empty. If the ICC had any sense, they’d insist the surplus was handed to schools for free.
I’m really looking forward to watching Usman Tariq today. The pause before delivery is a brilliant innovation – it reminds me of what Thierry Henry says about finishing. He’d look the goalie in the eyes – he called it “freezing him” because he was still stood looking back while Henry was passing it past him. What the pause does, I think, is obfuscate the time of release, which means the batter can’t anticipate what’s coming at him.
Teams
Pakistan: 1 Sahibzada Farhan, 2 Saim Ayub, 3 Salman Ali Agha (capt), 4 Babar Azam, 5 Fakhar Zaman, 6 Shadab Khan, 7 Usman Khan (wk), 8 Mohammad Nawaz, 9 Shaheen Afridi, 10 Salman Mirza, 11 Usman Tariq.
England: 1 Phil Salt, 2 Jos Buttler (wk), 3 Jacob Bethell, 4 Tom Banton, 5 Harry Brook (capt), 6 Sam Curran, 7 Will Jacks, 8 Liam Dawson, 9 Jamie Overton, 10 Jofra Archer, 11 Adil Rashid.
I thought England would fancy a chase on this wicket, with the ball coming on helped by the dew; Ian Ward tells us that Kumar Sangakkara reckons it’s a chase wicket and Moeen Ali wisely notes that wanting to bat first bespeaks teams not that confident.
England, unchanged, would also have batted, says Harry Brook. They’ve not played their best game yet, have prepared to face all the Pakistan bowlers, and are full of confience.
Pakistan won the toss and will bat
Salman Agha thinks it’s a good pitch and conditions in Sri Lanka don’t change much from place to place. He makes one change following the NZ NR: Shaheen Shah Afridi replaces Faheem Ashraf.
Time for the toss…
I guess it just feels impossible to win a World Cup with an attack of Dawson, Rashid, Overton, Archer, Curran and Jacks, but here we are. As Juice Terry Lawson has it, variety is the spice ay life – but I’d like just a touch more quality with it.
If Jos Buttler fails again today, is his position under threat? My sense is not, because he’s earned himself credit – and he’ll hope the track they’re playing on today has a bit more pace in it than Sunday’s. If that’s so, and it’s meant to be, I wonder if England consider playing Josh Tongue; again, my sense is not, batting depth prioritised over a firing pace attack.
What an absolute state of affairs this is:
Check out Simon Burnton’s preview.
Preamble
Modern life bombards us with information, demanding us to take positions, then entrench ourselves within them. As a consequence – yes, especially for the professional pronouncers among us – slipping away is the sacred art of saying … I don’t know.
And, with men’s T20 replacing women’s tennis as the world’s least predictable sport, this is a skill on which we’d do well to rely on over the next 12 days. Take England for example, their fearsome batting phutting only to be bailed out by … their battery of spinners? Verily, we do not expletive know.
What we do know, though, is that if England beat Pakistan today, they will be into the semis with a game to spare – a task far easier said that done. Though they’re now at home in Pallekele, while Pakistan are playing their first match away from Colombo, they’ll face a variety of slow bowlers, the kind of which they’ve been struggling against, the tournament’s leading run-scorer in Sahibzada Farhan, and the gloriously destructive Babar Azam.
But of course, T20 being T20, the decisive acts are just as likely to be performed by someone we never expected them of, in way it was impossible to preconceive, to deliver an outcome that feels both surprising and inevitable … or not, no one knows.
Play: 7pm local, 1.30pm GMT