A bewitching, twisting game, full of unpredictable turns and hitches, ended in a three-run victory for Pakistan. It was a match England lost, won and lost again in the space of 10 crazy minutes. At their start, they needed 33 runs from 18 balls to beat Pakistan’s 166, and were relying on Liam Dawson and Adil Rashid to do it against Mohammad Hasnain, who had already taken two for 16 with some wickedly quick bowling. They say heroes can be found in the most unlikely places, but outside of Dawson’s home village of Goatacre, there cannot have been many people watching who expected what happened next.
Dawson walloped a six down the ground, then glanced a four to third man off a no-ball, he stuck the free hit through mid-wicket, uppercut the next over the slips, and glanced the fifth through square leg. By the time he had taken a single off the final delivery, he’d hit 24 runs off the over, which was one more than he had scored in his 10 previous T20 innings for England. “I think that took everyone by surprise,” said the head coach, Matthew Mott. “I don’t think in our wildest dreams we ever imagined we would end up in that position.”
