England were crowned champions of the 2022 ICC T20 World Cup on Sunday when they defeated Pakistan by 5 wickets in what turned out to be a comprehensive victory. This is England’s second win at the T20 World Cup, 12 years after Paul Collingwood’s team defeated Australia and the first ICC title for the ‘Three Lions’in 2010. Ben Stokes hit an unbeaten fifty to take the team home after Sam Curran’s brilliance with the ball limited Pakistan to an undersized total of 137 runs. England are now the first team to ever hold the 50-over World Cup and T20 World Cup titles together.
Pakistan needed a genuine bowling performance to stay in the game and they did.
Shaheen Shah Afridi produced a peach of a delivery to Castle England’s semi-final star Alex Hales for a score of 1 in the very first over of the chase to give Pakistan the start they needed after an unimpressive show with the bat.
Skipper Jos Buttler fought fire with fire as he produced some great shots to get England going in the power play. Phil Salt’s short stay in the middle produced two limits, but he became the first victim of Haris Rauf, who handed an easy catch to Iftikhar halfway through the wicket when the ‘Three Lions’ dropped to 32/2. A visibly pumped-up Rauf returned to retrieve Buttler’s big wicket (26) when a sea of green erupted into the colosseum-esque Melbourne Cricket Ground.
At 45/3 with the power play still on, Pakistan had fought their way back into the game and now much rested on the broad shoulders of England’s 2019 World Cup hero Ben Stokes.
Stokes and Brook made the total of 80 and kept the asking price within a comfortable range, but Shadab Khan skipped in his last to remove the latter for 20 as England were 84/4.
Naseem Shah made an impressive comeback in the game by bowling two tight overs as the asking price started to climb.
But a huge turnaround happened when Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shaheen stumbled off the field after throwing the first delivery of the 16th. Part-time off-spinner Iftikhar was handed the ball to finish the over and he nearly sent Ben Stokes away. The ball fell short for Babar Azam and Stokes hit a boundary and six of the last two deliveries to bring the equation down to 28 it took from 24 balls.
Moeen started the next over from Mohammad Wasim with two straight boundaries and finished with another as England needed 12 to win 3 overs.
With 6 runs needed on 11 balls, Mohammad Wasim put an end to Ali’s 19-run cameo to let Pakistan breathe.
Pakistan came first after English skipper Buttler won the toss. Pakistan captain Babar Azam and opening partner Mohammad Rizwan tried to get the team off to a steady start, but Curran secured an early break for England when Rizwan slashed his stumps for a personal score of 15.
England kept the Pakistani batters on a tight leash and gave away only 39 runs in the power play. Babar dropped the anchor, but the wickets kept falling around him when Mohammad Haris (8) failed to bring out his attacking play in the summit duel, leaving him prey to the trickery of Adil Rashid.
Babar and left-handed Shan Masood brought some stability into the innings with their vigilant approach, leaving the team at 68/2 after 10 overs. Masood attacked Liam Livingstone’s over and took Pakistan to 84/2 after 11 overs.
But wickets then began to tumble as Rashid Babar declined for 32 and Stokes returned to send the dangerous Iftikhar Ahmed back for a duck.
Shahab Khan hit some big shots to put Pakistan in a position where they could advance to a score over 150, but they had no response to the excellence of Curran returning to sack the well-arranged Shan Masood for 38.
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Chris Jordan was good for Shadab (20) and a few lucky strokes took Pakistan to 137/8.
Sam Curran (3/12) was the star of the show for England with Adil Rashid (2/22) and Chris Jordan (2/27) providing the supporting cast.
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