No one left the National Stadium early on Thursday. Two days earlier, fans had poured out of the ground in the final few overs of England’s win. This time, every one of the 30,000 fans stayed right until the very end of a famous victory. Between them Pakistan’s openers, Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan, chased down England’s formidable total of 199 with three balls to spare. It was the highest chase in men’s T20 cricket without losing a wicket. There’s been a lot of talk in Pakistan about the weakness of the team’s middle order. Truth is, it doesn’t matter how everyone else bats when you have openers who can play like that.
Moeen Ali said that the game turned when he brought himself on to bowl the 13th over, at which point Pakistan were 104 for none. Azam pulled him over mid-wicket for one six and drove him down the wicket for another. By the time Rizwan slog-swept a third over square leg off the last ball, the over had cost 21. “I genuinely feel my over cost the game for us,” Ali said. “It was a gamble on my part, I was almost trying to buy a wicket, and it didn’t come off.” It’s true that England seemed to run out of ideas about how to drag the game back after that, but still, he was being generous to his team.
