A night when England caused terror with the ball and made errors with the bat most importantly ended with victory over Afghanistan, and a successful start to their T20 World Cup campaign. Mark Wood’s average speed was the fastest in the history of the tournament but their scoring was much more pedestrian as they trudged to a winning total of 113 with 11 balls and five wickets remaining.
Sam Curran became the first English player to take a five-for in a T20 international as he shredded Afghanistan’s lower order towards the end of their innings, taking four wickets for no runs in six balls across two overs to end with the fantasy figures of five wickets for 10 runs. Far from finding the accelerator in their final few overs the Afghans instead located the self-destruct button, slumping from 106 for five with three overs left to 112 all out with two balls unused.
“Any time you’re taking on those tough situations, that’s when you want to be involved,” Curran said. “There will be some days when it doesn’t come off but hopefully I can keep gaining confidence and all the other bowlers around me can take confidence from that performance. It was my first World Cup game and the energy when I woke up, to know you’re going to be playing in a World Cup, gives you that extra buzz.”
After they so successfully restricted Afghanistan’s scoring the question was whether England’s response would be full-bore or just bore and, while they never appeared in any real danger of defeat, they erred towards option two, not exactly the fireworks the audience of 8,405, and 51,595 empty seats, in Perth’s magnificent stadium had expected.
Neither opener managed more than a run a ball, Dawid Malan scored 30 off 18 and, when Liam Livingstone nudged the ball down the leg side for four in the 14th over, it was remarkably their first boundary since the fifth. There must have been a temptation to attack such a low target with aggression to boost their net run rate but England appeared to conclude that the best option was not so much to go hell for leather as mild discomfort for polyester.
By the end of the ninth over Jos Buttler had fallen for 18, Alex Hales had been dropped twice and caught once, and England were 59 for two. They were still on course for victory but there will not be many games in this competition when that kind of score is a waypoint for anything but disaster. On this occasion their bowling had been good enough to allow it.
On a green wicket England won the toss, took the ball and grasped the initiative. What followed was an outstanding display of accuracy and discipline from the bowlers, and a near-impeccable performance in the field, to make sure the Afghan innings never gained momentum. There was no early rush of wickets – that came later – but with the run-scoring as pedestrian as the bowling was at times electric, England quickly took control.
They continued the recent experiment of opening the bowling with a single Ben Stokes over, but from there Wood and Chris Woakes ripped through the powerplay. Wood’s speed was breathtaking and, having failed to take a single wicket at last year’s World Cup, he got one this time with his very first delivery, which whipped past Rahmanullah Gurbaz, flicked the inside edge and flew into Buttler’s gloves.
England celebrated as the batter stood bemused, perhaps having mistimed a blink and missed it all – he had to ask his fellow opener, Hazratullah Zazai, what on earth had happened before he eventually trudged from the field. Wood’s fastest delivery in that opening over was clocked at 96mph and set the tone for his evening. He has worked hard on his variations but they went unused on a night when his slowest delivery clocked 88mph.
Meanwhile England’s catching was magnificent and they compiled a showreel of outstanding efforts. Livingstone’s was the first and probably the best, racing round to his right before diving forward to dismiss Zazai.
Moeen Ali collected a high ball dropping over his shoulder as casually as if he was itching his chin or clearing wax from his ear and, if Adil Rashid – England’s most expensive bowler, albeit on an unhelpful wicket – did not take a similar approach to a superficially similar effort, it was only because of the amount of distance he had to cover to get there.
Then Buttler supermanned to his left to collect the ball after Mohammad Nabi gloved one down the leg side. “When Livi took that catch it set that standard of really scrapping for every run in the field,” Curran said. “We do a lot of hard work on our fielding and it’s going to be a massive factor in the tournament.”
There was plenty here to praise and plenty also to improve on.
