Moeen Ali said the game changed when he put himself in to bowl the 13th over, so Pakistan were 104 for none. Azam pulled him over mid-wicket for a six and drove him down the wicket for another. By the time Rizwan swept a third over square leg off the last ball, the over had cost 21. “I really feel my over cost us the game,” Ali said. “It was a gamble on my part, I was almost trying to buy a wicket and it didn’t work out.” It’s true that England seemed to have run out of ideas on how to drag the game back after that, but he was generous with his team nonetheless. The real turning point came in the fifth over of the innings when Rizwan, on 23, was handcuffed to the ball at mid off by Liam Dawson and Alex Hales dropped the catch. Rizwan provided another chance in the very next over when Phil Salt missed a cut off the first ball of Adil Rashid’s spell, and a third much later in the game when Ali missed a tough chance at cover. “We get our catches and it’s a different game in my opinion,” Ali said. It can. But Azam’s innings was impeccable. His first 30 runs were little better than a run-a-ball, but he ended up with 110 off 66. It was a thrilling innings, full of hasty singles, vicious cuts and bad pulls. Rizwan finished on 88 off 51. Dawson had replaced Richard Gleeson, which meant England ended up in the unusual position of having an attack of three spinners and three left-arm spinners. All that variety didn’t do much for them. “There were a few other things we had to try,” Ali said sadly. “No one really bowled with boulders.” It was a bit late to think about it now. Only Dawson and Sam Curran had any real control over the scoring rate. Pakistan have been particularly tough on David Willey, who now has 7.3 overs for 85 runs in two games and is certain to be left out of the squad for Friday’s match. Alli says England will “make a few changes” and hinted that some of the injured players in the squad, Mark Wood, Chris Woakes and Gleeson himself, could be available. Olly Stone might be more likely. As Ali said, “in T20 cricket you want people who can bowl 90mph” and England sorely lacked that. Ali will know better what to expect from the field, too. He admitted he misread this one, which played surprisingly well considering it looked so dry and cracked, though he said he didn’t regret his decision. England had, after all, fought back quite well. Moeen Ali hit his half-century from just 23 balls, but his efforts were soon overshadowed by Pakistan’s openers. Photo: Anjum Naveed/AP It was built around an open stand of 42 between Hales and Salt, an inventive 43 off 22 balls from Ben Duckett full of scoops and sweeps and looks, a blistering 31 off 19 from Harry Brook and, the cherry on top, a 23-ball fifty. from Ali. He had said earlier in the week that what he really wanted to do while in Pakistan was to help raise funds for the floods in the south of the country. He did just that by hitting four glorious sixes, each of which cost the sponsors a donation of $1,000. His partnership with Brook was worth 59 off 27 balls. But all their efforts were put in new perspective by the way Pakistan batted. Azam and Rizwan hit 16 fours and nine sixes. Their bowlers also provided their share of entertainment, especially Haris Rauf and Shahnawaz Dahani, who took two wickets each. Dahani, who plays for the local province of Sindh, lit up the ground when he bowled Hales and David Malan in successive balls. Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers’ thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week’s action Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Dahani celebrated each wind by turning on his heel and sprinting back the way he came, wagging his finger and shouting madly as if chasing someone who had just nicked his bike. Which was great fun but led to an unfortunate moment later in the innings when he started again to celebrate when Ali was caught in the deep. He made it most of the way to the boundary before finally realizing, after hearing Azam shout, that Khushdil Shah had bowled the catch. As funny as it was, Hales’ fall meant that Dahani and his teammates had the last laugh.
