England beats Pakistan by 67 runs in last warm up fixture of ICC World Cup 2011
England beat Pakistan by 67 runs in the last warm up match of the ICC World Cup 2011. It was a much needed win for the English team. It should help boost their morale after they were trumped in the One Day Internatinal (ODI) series against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 by a margin of 1-6. On the other hand, Pakistan has had a good run to the mega event because of their series victory over the Black Caps. Fans might be disappointed with their performance in the warm up fixture, even though the Men in Green rested their main players during the match.
At the Khan Shaheb Osman Ali Stadium, Pakistan won the toss and decided to field first on a flat batting track. Pakistan did not play http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482, Abdul Razzaq and Umar Gul and tried out some of the younger players in the squad. England’s coach, Andy Flower, chose not to experiment ahead of the world cup and fielded the best possible English side.
Pakistan started off well with the ball as both Shoaib Akhtar and Junaid Khan did not give much away to the English batsmen and got rid of Andrew Strauss very early in the innings. Kevin Pietersen opened the batting for England and played a brilliant knock to consolidate the innings for his team along with Paul Collingwood, which helped England post a very competitive score of 273 runs on the board before being bowled out in the 50th over of the innings.
Pietersen and Collingwood scored 66 and 65 runs respectively and made their runs at a very healthy strike-rate. Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara and Matt Prior also played impressive cameos to help their team’s cause.
Junaid http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 with three wickets for 44 runs in his nine overs. Wahab Riaz also picked up three wickets to support his younger partner.
Chasing a big score under lights, Pakistan faced an early set back as Mohammad Hafeez was dismissed without opening his account. Kamran Akmal looked good for a while before he was trapped in front of the wickets by Stuart Broad. Apart from Younis Khan, none of the Pakistani batsmen were able to cope with the tight English bowling and as a result the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Green-c60723 shirts were bowled out for only 206 runs in the 47th over of the innings.
Younis remained the top scorer for Pakistan with a well-made 80 which came off 101 balls with the help of eight fours and a six.
Stuart Broad took his second five wicket haul in two warm up matches as he took five wickets for only 25 runs to destroy Pakistan’s hopes of chasing a good score. Paul Collingwood also chipped in with three wickets.
Over all it was good practice for both the teams ahead of their group matches of the ICC World Cup 2011 but Pakistan would have to do some work with their batting if they are to beat some of the stronger teams in group ‘A’.
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