- Over-by-over coverage of the action at Headingley
- The Hundred has won me over but it remains a gamble
- Any comments? You can email Tim | tweet @timdelisle
8th over: England 87-3 (Buttler 34, Livingstone 1) That was a great moment for Hasnain and for Babar Azam, who went on the defensive very quickly here and found the move backfiring badly as Moeen and Buttler made hay. But Babar then showed some mettle, by keeping Hasnain on after his fiasco of a first over, and it paid off with a vital wicket. Moeen’s innings was delicious, but it was just a cameo.
Noooo! Mo!! Let’s chip again, he thinks, and he can’t get it over Babar at mid-off. Pakistan needed that.
7th over: England 81-2 (Buttler 33, Moeen 35) Time for Shadab Khan, the first of the many wrist-spinners on the menu today. He starts solidly, conceding only singles, but then Moeen gets going again with a pull for four and a slog-sweep for six. Mo has 35 off 14 balls and the partnership has raced to 63.
6th over: England 66-2 (Buttler 29, Moeen 24) It’s a double change as Shaheen gives way to Haris Rauf, with his slingy tape-ball action. He too gets a warm welcome from Moeen, who cuts the first ball with a vengeance, back-foot-drives the second through mid-off, shovels another one past midwicket, and eases a fourth past backward point. So the PowerPlay ends with England on fire,, and those two early wickets are already a distant memory. Buttler and Moeen in full flow: Headingley’s first T20i crowd don’t know how lucky they are.
5th over: England 47-2 (Buttler 28, Moeen 7) Just when Imad was threatening to take out the whole top order, he gets taken off. It’s Mohammad Hasnain, from the great tradition of Pakistan bowlers who look about 12. Moeen greets him with a lofted square drive, lovely, languid, and only just evading the man at backward point. Buttler greets Hasnain with a ramp for six! And then a glide through gully for four, and another one, squarer. That’s 19 off the over from poor young Hasnain. Buttler has 28 off just 15 balls and he’s only taken one real risk, with that ramp.
4th over: England 28-2 (Buttler 14, Moeen 2) Michael Vaughan is saying England should “just bat here, even if it means being 40 at the end of the PowerPlay,” and Jimmy Anderson is murmuring agreement. Buttler plays another lovely drive for four, past backward point this time, but Shaheen cramps him for room after that. It’s down to Buttler, Bairstow and Livingstone to get England to something resembling respectability here. Babar Azam will be thinking, three more wickets and we’re into the tail.
3rd over: England 23-2 (Buttler 10, Moeen 1) In comes not Jonny Bairstow, who’s used to the PowerPlay, but Moeen Ali, England’s half-forgotten man. He almost perishes first ball, chipping Imad rather too close to a caught-and-bowled, but he gets away with it, takes a single, and then watches Buttler thread another drive through the off side. Imad has been expensive but effective, with 2 for 17 off his two overs.
Malan goes for the slog-sweep and it’s another big fat top edge, to Azam Khan at short third man. England are in trouble.
2nd over: England 17-1 (Buttler 5, Malan 1) It’s Shaheen Shah Afridi to bowl to Dawid Malan, who has been all or nothing this summer – he either gets 68-plus or single figures. Shaheen, who eats left-handers for breakfast, beats Malan, who then prods into the leg side to get off the mark. Buttler sees that and decides to get going in style, with a cover drive, opening the face to find the gap – which is enough to sweep away the only slip.
1st over: England 11-1 (Buttler 0, Malan 0) The first ball is a dot, the second is a ... six! Roy spots a half-tracker and carts it over midwicket. When Imad pitches it up, Roy is waiting with a sweep and that’s four more. Then there’s a wide, and Imad seems to be losing the plot – only to slow himself down by 10mph and lure Roy to his doom. It was all a plan! Two dots to Buttler round off an over that had a little bit of everything.
Big heave, top edge, simple catch at backward point.
Play! It’s going to be Imad Wasim with his slow-left-arm darts.
“At Trent Bridge,” says Zain Malik on Twitter, “it was probably the toss that made the most significant impact. The game could have ended on a different note had the English skipper elected to bat first.” You may well be right, though I wouldn’t want to be the person trying to convince Eoin Morgan about that.
Not wanting to send anyone away from the OBO, but this match is live on BBC1 – so do grab the nearest impressionable young person and give them a taste of it.
“Eoin Morgan has solved the problem of the congestion around England’s batting places,” says Simon Wilde of The Sunday Times on Twitter, “by dropping himself for today’s second T20.” He has also made it clear how he feels about this series: he’s not too bothered about losing it.
With only four T20 games left until the World Cup (all against Pakistan), Morgan would rather try different combinations than go all out for victory. This is still a strong England side, but the decision to field three and a half spinners is all about planning for the UAE.
England 1 Jason Roy, 2 Jos Buttler (capt, wkt), 3 Dawid Malan, 4 Jonny Bairstow, 5 Liam Livingstone, 6 Moeen Ali, 7 Tom Curran, 8 Chris Jordan, 9 Adil Rashid, 10 Saqib Mahmood, 11 Matt Parkinson.
Pakistan 1 Babar Azam (capt), 2 Mohammad Rizwan (wkt), 3 Fakhar Zaman, 4 Sohaib Maqsood, 5 Mohammad Hafeez, 6 Azam Khan, 7 Shadab Khan, 8 Imad Wasim, 9 Haris Rauf, 10 Shaheen Shah Afridi, 11 Mohammad Hasnain.
Pakistan opt not to change a winning team. England bring back Adil Rashid and Chris Jordan as well as Buttler, as Lewis Gregory and David Willey step down, along with Morgan. So England have two leg-spinners, Rashid and Matt Parkinson, plus Liam Livingstone’s slow all-sorts and Moeen Ali’s under-used off-breaks. They also have an uncharacteristically long tail, with Jordan and Tom Curran at Nos 7 and 8. Hmmm.
Eoin Morgan hands over to Jos Buttler, who returns from injury and becomes England’s third captain in three matches.
Babar Azam is looking forward to it: win the toss, “win the match and win the series”.
Afternoon everyone and welcome to the second T20, which England rather badly need to win. Typical, isn’t it? They field a bunch of third-stringers and win 3-0, then most of the big guns come back and they go 1-0 down.
It all makes sense if you look at the other element in the picture: the opposition. Pakistan are supposed to be more up-and-down than most sports teams, but on this short tour they have traced the steadiest of trajectories. In the first ODI, caught cold after playing no warm-ups, they made only 141. In the second, they managed 195. In the third, they almost put those two totals together with a sparkling 331 – only to be let down by their fielding and outshone by James Vince, finally having his day in the sun. Then, in the first T20, Pakistan’s batsmen improved again, lifting their scoring rate from 6.62 runs per over to 11.60. It was the fastest they had ever gone, in any form of cricket, over an innings lasting longer than one ball. Up, up and away.
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