How they won the World Cup – properly this time.
Telford Vice / Melbourne Cricket Ground
THE weather was English for the T20 World Cup final at the MCG on Sunday, but not the cricket. The first sign of that was the eighth delivery of the match, which Babar Azam drove into the turf and towards the covers — where Sam Curran fielded and tossed the ball up lamely, softening the punchline of his own small joke.
Since when have England’s players had fun on the field? For a while now, actually. And their grown-up, intelligent approach clearly works. Along with becoming one of the most attacking teams and innovative teams, regardless of format, the English seem to take pleasure in going about their business. You could see that, too, in Moeen Ali sauntering to the crease, his bat slung over his shoulder like a fishing rod, with England 84/4 needing another 54 off 44.
That’s not to say England don’t take matters seriously. Certainly, there was seriousness in Liam Livingstone’s threatened throw on the stumps after Shan Masood had hammered one of his off-breaks back to him via the pitch in the 11th. And 21 balls after Curren’s bit of harmless fakery, when splayed the stumps with the help of the inside edge of Mohammad Rizwan’s angled bat, he ripped a roar through his joy.
But there’s a lightness of spirit about the way England play that other teams must envy; an absence of the old nonsense about international sport serving as some kind of proxy for geopolitics. They plainly enjoy what they’re doing. You might say that’s what happens when there is enough money, professionalism and stability in a system to insulate players from the rawer edges of the pressures others face.
Maybe that helps explain why Pakistan batted for most of their innings more like one of the other teams who wear green — the sorry South Africans who disappeared against the Dutch in Adelaide a week ago — than the side whose batters might have turned up on Sunday had India beaten England in their semi-final. That geopolitics nonsense has its uses: it could have served to fill the vacuum of intensity that befell the Pakistani batters.
Their powerplay of 39/2 was bang on average for the MCG in this tournament, and for what Pakistan had achieved in their other games in the competition. But it was slightly off the 46/2, give or take a decimal point or three, that teams had made against England in the World Cup.
The pitch, the same one used in Pakistan’s heart-breaking loss to India, was, like then, not a straightforward surface to bat on, especially against seam. It was also a better strip than suggested by Pakistan’s total of 137/8, which was comfortably lower than the other two scores they have made batting first. Only when Masood was sharing 39 off 24 with Babar and 36 off 25 with Shadab Khan was the innings imbued with anything like the required impetus.
With Curran and Adil Rashid operating at less than a run a ball and taking 5/34 between them, and Ben Stokes having the dangerous but patchy Iftikhar Ahmed taken behind for a six-ball duck, Pakistan were always going to struggle to come up with a more competitive score. Only once in this tournament had a total as small or smaller been defended — by Zimbabwe, whose 130/8 proved enough to beat Pakistan by one run in Perth, and in the aftermath of the Pakistanis’ shattering defeat by India.
Not for the first time in Australia this past month, the crowd of 80,462 was overwhelmingly comprised of Pakistan supporters. The editorial in Sunday’s edition of the Melbourne Age, which examined cricket’s issues with racial and cultural differences in the country, went as far as to try to claim the Pakistani fans for Australia, even if only by dint of their opposition: “A sense of inclusion … ought to be extended tonight to the Pakistan team. After all, it’s the MCG and they’re playing against England.”
But it would take more than unofficial honorary citizenship to recast this match as some kind of ersatz white-ball Ashes contest, not with the way the game was going. The fans knew that, and were reduced to a worried burble for most of Pakistan’s innings. Only when Shaheen Afridi boomed an inswinger into Alex Hales’ stumps with the sixth ball of England’s reply did they rediscover their voice, which soared stirringly wherever their team have gone.
Would they need the rain, which had been forecast to fall heavily but had stayed above the thick blanket of grey cloud until the last over of Pakistan’s innings, to allow them to come back and shout another day? As in Monday, the reserve day, should each team not face at least 10 overs.
The question never needed to be answered as the drizzle didn’t reach the tipping point. Happily so, because Pakistan found a way to compete. England had lost Hales and Phil Salt inside the fourth over with only 32 scored, but Jos Buttler kept the momentum in a forward gear by clipping 20 off 10. Then England’s captain was beaten five times in an over by Naseem Shah’s bristling seam bowling. But the English still made hay, with Buttler scooping Naseem’s other delivery over his shoulders for six. Another went for five wides down leg.
Haris Rauf did for Buttler in the next over with a catch behind, and suddenly England were 45/3. Would it be them who might need the drizzle? No. Because nobody rains on Stokes’ parade. He added 39 off 42 in a steadying stand with Harry Brook, and then put foot in a partnership of 47 off 33 with Moeen.
Pakistan would be justified in wondering how the climax of the match might have played out had Afridi not injured himself in taking the catch, at long-off, that removed Brook in the 13th. Shadab Khan limited the damage to five runs in the over, and Naseem went for only two off the next. Rauf had conceded two before Stokes lashed the last ball of the 15th through the covers off the back foot for four. Back came Afridi, but he aborted his first delivery and left the field after bowling it at the second attempt. Iftikhar finished the over, and went for a dozen runs. England snuck ahead of the Duckworth/Lewis par score when Stokes cracked the penultimate delivery to the cover boundary for four. He launched the next ball over long-off for six, reducing the equation to 28 required off 24.
Moeen slammed three fours off Mohammad Waseem in the 17th, swinging the equation further in England’s favour: 12 required off 18. Six were needed off 10 when Moeen played on to Waseem’s yorker, but it hardly mattered. Stokes creamed a four through the covers two balls later to reach 50 off 47, and two deliveries after that he sealed the five-wicket win with a single to midwicket and with an over to spare.
Maybe the English hadn’t expected to be tested after they held Pakistan to their mediocre total, but they were. And they passed that test handsomely to claim victory far more convincingly than in the 2019 ODI World Cup final against New Zealand at Lord’s — when they were awarded the trophy on the dubious basis of a boundary count.
On Sunday they were indeed worthy champions. Better than that, they had fun proving their superiority. That doesn’t matter as much as winning, but it should.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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