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England survive late scare to score 14-run win over Pakistan in 1st T20I at Dubai

The England pacers, particularly Liam Plunkett, for most part were excellent in the defense of 160.

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England were good in every department © AFP
England were good in every department © AFP

England have continued their excellent white ball form against Pakistan in the first Twenty20 International (T20I) at Dubai. They were outstanding in every department and bore the rich fruit of their efforts. Pakistan’s chance received the first setback in only the second over when Reece Topley got rid of the talented Sarfraz Ahmed. Liam Plunkett took the charge from there and in his following two overs got two dismissals against his name in form of Mohammad Hafeez and Rafatullah Mohammad. Plunkett mixed his pace very well and hit upper margins of about 92 mph which proved too much for some batsmen. LIVE CRICKET SCORECARD: Pakistan vs England 2015,1st T20I at Dubai

Slow left arm bowler Stephen Parry maintained the pressure and got the wickets of Mohammad Rizwan and Shahid Afridi and created a lot of scoreboard pressure in his first three overs which indirectly resulted in a horrible mix up between Sohaib Maqsood and Umar Akmal which saw Akmal run out at an inopportune time. LIVE UPDATES: Pakistan vs England 2015, 1st T20I at Dubai

Sohaib Maqsood was done in by an alert Moeen Ali who noticing the batsman advancing slid the ball wide down leg out of his reach resulting in a stumping. Anwar Ali brought back some life in the game by striking two massive sixes of Parry’s last over to spoil the latter’s figures slightly before falling to Plunkett. At this stage the common thought was that the game was out of reach for Pakistan as they had only two wickets in hand requiring about 70 runs at more than 12 an over.

However the fight was not over from Pakistan’s end. Sohail Tanvir and Wahab Riaz struck some mighty sixes amid their customary tail-ender clumsiness to give England a massive scare. They took the fight into the final over with 20 required and things began to look extremely thrilling when Riaz struck a four of the second ball, bringing the equation to 16 off four balls, but Topley managed to get him to mishit the next ball and then it was definitely over for Pakistan.

Earlier, England’s innings was nicely fashioned despite some quality bowling by the Pakistanis. Sam Billings scored a fiery fifty and Eoin Morgan chipping in with an unbeaten 45. Earlier in the innings, after a horrible start James Vince brought stability and momentum to the innings with a calculated 41. Sohail Tanvir and Anwar Ali bowled well for Pakistan.

FULL SCORECARD

Brief scores:

England 160 for five in 20 overs (Sam Billings 53, Eoin Morgan 45*; Sohail Tanvir 2 for 31) beat Pakistan 146 all out in 20 overs (Sohail Tanvir 25*; Liam Plunkett 3 for 21, Reece Topley 3 for 24)

(Rishad D’Souza, a reporter with CricketCountry, gave up hopes of playing Test cricket after a poor gully-cricket career. He now reports on the sport. You can follow @RDcric on Twitter)

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