England v Pakistan, 3rd T20I, Old Trafford – England look to seal sixth consecutive T20I series win
Pakistan’s last match of their England tour sees them at a similar position to the one they were in going into the third Test earlier this summer, playing well in both games but slipping up in one and the weather intervening in the other. They would desperately want to sign off on a good note, registering their first win in the tour and prevent England from securing a sixth consecutive series win, spanning over the last two years.
Despite clinching victory in the previous game by chasing down a steep total of 196, England, the current 50-Over World Cup champions who triumphed in the shortest format as well 10 years ago, would like to approach the following game like champions, scrutinizing upon the shortcomings that came across so far in the series.
The first of them that they would find is the performance of their bowlers in the previous game. Pakistan could have added a lot more to their total if Babar Azam batted through and Mohammad Hafeez capitalized a little more, but the England pacers just could not find the correct length, especially towards the death overs.
Lewis Gregory, Chris Jordan and Tom Curran were guilty of either putting it right in the slot or bowling full-tosses whenever they tried to go for the yorker, or bowling too short to Hafeez on several occasions, who made merry by peppering the stands over deep square leg and deep mid-wicket.
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Much was expected from England’s leg-spinner Adil Rashid, especially given that the pitch had dried up due to the sun. But he, too, was well and truly out of sorts, banging the ball halfway down for the best part of his spell. The one occasion he got it right, he comprehensively beat Babar with a leg-break that turned a mile after pitching at a length.
Had the Pakistan batsmen, especially Babar, been more severe on the leggie, his figures of 2/32, out of which the wicket of Babar came off a half-tracker, would have been much worse. Rashid, who has been one of England’s key bowlers in the middle-overs in this format over the last few years, would want to get back in the groove that he had been in, especially with the fixtures against Australia looming.
England’s top 4 have scored close to 9/10th of the runs so far in the series. Had it not been for Dawid Malan’s calm and collected stay in the middle after the departure of Eoin Morgan, the outcome of the previous game could have been much more different.
Sam Billings did show some promise by hitting a couple of boundaries at a crucial juncture, levelling the scores in the process, but with the regular limited-overs players returning to the squad for the fixtures against Australia, he, along with Moeen Ali, who registered scores of 8 and 1 in the two games will have to pull their socks up and deliver tonight if the situation requires them to do so, unlike what took place in the first game.
Moeen Ali is going through his longest barren run of form with the bat
The biggest concern for Pakistan will be the potential absence of left-arm seamer Mohammad Amir, who had to leave the field in the previous game owing to a hamstring strain. The two other pacers, rather inexperienced at the national level, certainly looked hapless against onslaughts of first Bairstow, and then Morgan, as Haris Rauf and Shaheen went for 8 and 13 an over respectively. The spinners, in contrast, have been decent throughout the series, and with the pitch turning square in the last game on a few occasions, Pakistan would once again rely heavily on them to at least take England’s rampant top-order out.
Babar Azam has been due for a high-scoring knock across formats in this tour. He had yet another chance to play one in the previous game, justified his number 1 ranking among T20I batsmen at the moment, but his tame dismissal to Rashid prevented Pakistan from registering a score well in excess of 200.
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Team News – England
England would want to go with the same team in the third game, given that the reserve bench does not have too many options. The one alteration they might consider in their XI is David Willey for Lewis Gregory, but it can be argued that the Somerset all-rounder hasn’t had enough opportunities to prove himself.
Probable XI:
Tom Banton, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Dawid Malan, Eoin Morgan (c), Sam Billings, Moeen Ali, Lewis Gregory, Tom Curran, Chris Jordan, Adil Rashid, Saqib Mahmood
Team News – Pakistan
Mohammad Amir’s hamstring pull might coax Pakistan to bring in another experienced campaigner in Wahab Riaz. Pakistan would also be tempted to try young Haider Ali in place of Iftikhar Ahmed, whose significance in the side depleted after he went for 31 runs in his 3 overs in their last outing. Given that he batted in the middle-order, and Pakistan already having 5 frontline bowlers, we might see Pakistan play the extra batsman to get those extra 15-20 runs they dearly needed in the previous game.
Probable XI:
Babar Azam (c), Fakhar Zaman, Haider Ali, Mohammad Hafeez, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Shadab Khan, Imad Wasim, Wahab Riaz, Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf
Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester, Lancashire
After the first game, which was played in more or less typical Manchester conditions, on a damp pitch under overcast conditions, the emergence of the sun from behind the clouds, a rare sight to have been witnessed in England this summer, the pitch dried up, which resulted in a high-scoring contest last game. A cloudy but mostly dry day being predicted today means that we might have a similar contest to the previous game in store, unless the unpredictability of the English weather looms upon us yet again.