Sunday, November 13, 2022

England clinch 2022 T20 World Cup title after thrilling five-wicket win over Pakistan at MCG

England rode on a brilliant fifty by Ben Stokes to beat Pakistan by five wickets in the final of the T20 World Cup 2022 on Sunday in Melbourne. With the win, England have clinched their second T20 World Cup title and become only the second team after West Indies to win the elusive title twice.

Chasing a paltry 138-run target, England started on a poor note as they lost Alex Hales in the first over of their innings. However, skipper Jos Buttler smashed 26 off just 17 balls to keep Pakistan on the backfoot.

But, Pakistan bounced back in the game with quick wickets of Philip Salt and Buttler, and maintained pressure on England’s batters by not giving easy runs.

However, star all-rounder Ben Stokes once again proved his mettle as he played sensibly and scored unbeaten 52 runs to help England cross the finishing line with an over to spare.

For Pakistan, Haris Rauf bagged two wickets while Shaheen Afridi, Shadab Khan and Mohammad Wasim Jr picked a wicket each.

Interestingly, England have now become the first team to simultaneously hold both World titles (ODI and T20I).

Earlier, Sam Curran delivered stunning spell and bagged three while Chris Jordan and Adil Rashid took two wickets each respectively to restrict the Men in Green to 137/8 in the allotted 20 overs.

Shan Masood scored the highest runs for Pakistan with 38 while skipper Babar Azam scored 32.
Curran, who made comeback from an injury earlier this year, has been England’s ‘go to’ bowler in the competition and he proved that on the big stage with brilliant figures of 4-0-12-3.

The wily Rashid (4-1-22-2) wasn’t going to be left far behind as he choked the run-flow in the middle overs with as many as 25 dot balls between him and Curran.

Rashid, with his stupendous effort, time and again showed how the Indian team management bungled its script by letting Yuzvendra Chahal cool his heels throughout the tournament.

The MCG track had enough bounce and pace but Buttler’s best-performing bowling duo (Curran and Rashid) did exactly the opposite – take the pace off their deliveries.

Rashid flighted and lowered his pace to 75 kmph while Curran bowled between 126 kmph to 130 kmph which made run scoring difficult for the Pakistani batters.

Both Babar Azam (32 off 28 balls) and Mohammed Rizwan (15 off 14) started on a cautious note as they had been doing for the past one year.

Curran, England’s most consistent bowler in the tournament, angled one across at fuller length and Rizwan didn’t have enough width to drive as he dragged that back to the stumps.

Mohammed Haris (8 off 12), the find of the tournament for Pakistan, generally struggled before Rashid ended his misery.

He flighted one and enticed Haris to charge down the track but he was too close to the pitch of the delivery and was holed out at long-on.

Babar hit a couple of boundaries but as it has been for him generally, it was more of a struggle to keep the scoreboard alive.

In fact, Shan Masood (38 off 28), who takes time before taking the attack back to the opposition camp, looked more aggressive than his skipper.

At the start of the back-10, when Jos Buttler introduced Liam Livingstone to bowl his off-breaks, Shan got 14 runs with a down the ground boundary and a six.

But Babar at the other end was foxed by the guile of Rashid as he shaped to play the cut and found a googly cramping him for room to give a return catch to the English leg-spinner of Pakistani descent.

Iftikhar Ahmed (0) would like to forget the evening as he was kept under tight leash by Rashid and then Stokes bowled one in the channel to get a nick as Pakistan slumped to 85 for 4 in the 13th over.

Shan would definitely curse himself as he built a launchpad for himself and thew it all away as Curran tested his patience with variations of cross seam deliveries and cutters.

The mistimed pull was easily taken at the mid-wicket boundary and Pakistan cricket’s current darling Shadab Khan (20 off 14 balls) promised a lot but delivered too little.

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