England vs Pakistan first Twenty20 preview
There’s an international cricket series going on in England, if you hadn’t noticed.
While the world has been focussed on the betting scandal sparked by the News of the World’s allegations, published last weekend, that implicated a group of Pakistan players in a spot-fixing scam in the Test against England at Lord’s, we’ve also been drawing ever closer to the first limited-overs match of the summer between the two sides.
That match, a Twenty20 International, is due to take place in Cardiff on Sunday. It pits the reigning World Twenty20 champions (England) against the 2009 winners (Pakistan) in their first meeting in the shortest format of the game since England became world champions.
The notable absence in England’s squad, when it was announced earlier in the week, was Kevin Pietersen. Making a clear statement the out-of-sorts batsman couldn’t survive in the side on reputation alone, selectors sent KP back to county cricket to see out the rest of the season.
Pietersen’s absence once again sees the door swing open for Ravi Bopara to make his case for a regular position in the Twenty20 side after filling in for KP as the No.3 batsman during England’s World Twenty20 warm-ups (where he made 62 from 49 against Bangladesh) and in the match Pietersen missed in the main competition when he flew home to attend the birth of his son. That match wasn’t so successful for Bopara, who was caught out for nine.
Another with a big incentive to prove his worth in the Twenty20s is wicketkeeper-batsman Craig Kieswetter, who has been left out of England’s ODI squad as selectors instead placed their faith in Surrey’s Steven Davies behind the stumps.
And with the Ashes due to get underway later in the year, pacemen Tim Bresnan and Ryan Sidebottom will surely be looking to bowl their way into contention for a place on the plane to Australia during the limited-overs matches against Pakistan.
So, there’s plenty of incentive for the home side to perform in this series, even as the current corruption cloud looks set to obscure much of the on-field cricket news into at least the near future.
What of Pakistan, who have spent the week either holed up in their team hotels, or being ushered onto buses to travel between them, or to the county ground in Taunton as they prepared for a warm-up match against Somerset (which, incidentally, the tourists won)?
Test captain Salman Butt and pacemen Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir – the three Pakistan players implicated in the betting scandal – won’t feature for the remainder of their team’s tour of England.
The trio yesterday withdrew from the rest of the tour as they were “not in the right frame of mind to play the remaining matches” said Pakistan high commissioner, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, before the ICC last night charged Butt, Asif and Amir under its Anti-Corruption Code and issued them with provisional suspensions as part of the package.
Shahid Afridi is back at the helm for this one, and he’s facing a tough task to keep his team competitive in this match.
Pakistan’s pace attack, the backbone of which has been Asif and Amir, had been the visitor’s strength in the Test series, but it has taken a huge hit as a result of the pair’s absences for the limited-overs matches. It’s hard to see Afridi’s side recovering from that loss.
Prediction: England to win.