Pakistan Sports Journal

Shahid Afridi admits that we played very bad cricket. Photo: File photo from web

Dismal performance of Pakistan resulted in England victory over Pakistan in the second T20 match by 6 wickets and wrapped up the series 2-0.

Pakistan batting line failed to play their complete 20 overs and innings was ended on Pakistan’s lower ever total in T20 cricket, 89. World Champions England bowls superbly against the demoralized Pakistan team and they won the game very much in the first innings of the match.

Pakistani batsmen were caught at no man’s land, there was no game plane. Experience of Mohammad Yousuf, Kamran Akmal, Shahid Afridi, and Razzaq didn’t paid off this time, anything pleasant wasn’t expected from the youngsters which resulted in the worst ever performance by Pakistan in T20 internationals.

Yorkshire seamer Tim Bresnan, the man-of-the-match, took three wickets for 10 runs in 3.4 overs as Pakistan fell well short of their previous worst Twenty20 international score of 125 for nine in 20 overs against Australia at Melbourne in February.

Umar Akmal's 17 was the top score for 2009 World Twenty20 winners Pakistan. The tourists, after Afridi won the toss, collapsed to 22 for four off five overs, after taking 11 off the first from Sidebottom.

Umar Gul produced the shot of the innings when he lifted a Broad slower ball over the fine leg boundary for six, but Razzaq was unable to find his range in a fitful performance. He finally struck his first boundary from his 19th delivery, as Sidebottom offered too much width from a low-toss, only for both men to fall from his next two deliveries. First to go was Razzaq, who top-edged a slower-ball bouncer to Yardy at slip, before Gul pumped a similar delivery to Bopara, running in from deep square leg.

Shoaib Akhtar creamed Bresnan through the covers for a handsome four, but before the over was out, Bresnan had been rewarded for an impressive performance with his third and final wicket of the innings. A well-directed yorker took out the base of middle stump to leave England chasing a meager 90 for victory.

England started off well as Craig Kieswetter grabs 19 runs from the innings second over from Umar Gull. Both He and Steven Davies fell in the same over of Shoaib Akhtar, giving some joy to Pakistani faces.

Collingwood like Test series failed to pick Saeed Ajmal and his variations and caught in the slips by Mohammad Hafeez. Ravi Bopara was looking very keen to stay till the end but he was undone by very bad shot to Shahid Afridi.

Eoin Morgan and Michael Yardy like the first T20, finished the game for England in style with 5 wickets and 36 balls in the bank. After the 3-1 Test series win another 2-0 series win for England and this tour is getting more and darker for Pakistan.

One dayers are coming up and hopefully we will gonna see some more fight from Pakistan in that series.