The debutant Zak Crawley and senior player David Malan’s splendid batting helped the host side, to chase down 142 runs convincingly in 22 overs to lead the series by 1–0 over Pakistan at Cardiff.
Pakistani bowlers looked potentially down, as batsmen didn’t give them a fighting total in the first innings. Shaheen Shah Afridi picked up the solitary wicket of Phil Salt.
Malan showed his usual class and completed his second ODI fifty and remained unbeaten on 68 with eight boundaries. Debutant Crawley also impressed with his batting in their opening match and smashed seven boundaries and ended with 58*.
In the first innings, Pakistan was dismissed for a paltry 141 as Saqib Mahmood wreaked havoc in the first over of the innings. The right-arm pacer took back-to-back wickets of Imam-ul-Haq and then captain Babar Azam in the first over of the match
Lewis Gregory got wicket-keeper batsmen Mohammad Rizwan in the fourth over. Sohaib Maqsood and Fakhar Zaman scored 53 runs together for the fifth wicket. After scoring 19 runs Maqsood was run out after a horrendous misjudgment.
Opener Zaman got out after scoring 47 runs with six boundaries, whereas Shadab Khan also fought well to take his team out of pressure. He made 30 runs off 43 balls.
Saqib bagged his best ODI figures of four-wicket only 42 runs. Craig Overton and Matt Parkinson picked up two wickets each
After a defeat against this new inexperienced England team, captain Babar Azam in a post-match online presser said that “Unfortunately, it was a bad day for our national team, England bowled well according to their plan and credit should be given to them.”
Azam further said that team management will sit together and will look at what went wrong and try to rectify our mistakes.
Playing XI
England: Phil Salt, Dawid Malan, Zak Crawley, James Vince, Ben Stokes (capt), John Simpson (wk) Lewis Gregory, Craig Overton, Brydon Carse, Saqib Mahmood, Matt Parkinson
Pakistan: Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Babar Azam (capt), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Saud Shakeel, Sohaib Maqsood, Shadab Khan, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf
