Gone From The Local Village Team To Looking Like World Beaters In A Week: Michael Vaughan In Awe Of Pakistan's Unpredictability

Former England captain Michael Vaughan has hailed the Pakistan Cricket Team for its ‘unpredictability”‘ after the Babar Azam-led unit stormed back with a brilliant performance in the first T20I at Trent Bridge following a 0-3 drubbing in the recent ODI series.

Pakistan’s ‘mercurial nature was once again on display during the first T20I against Eoin Morgan’s England as the former No.1 ranked T20I team in the world brought their ‘A’ game to the table on Friday in what was an incredibly exciting game of T20 cricket.

The visitors had shown signs of improvement in their batting in the last ODI and, on Friday, they showed the full picture as they put on a perfect display of batsmanship on what was an absolute belter of a pitch at Trent Bridge.

Once again it was the duo of skipper Babar Azam and wicketkeeper-batsman Mohammad Rizwan that led the way for the visitors with the bat.

Azam, who scored a whirlwind 49-ball 85, alongside Rizwan (63 off 41 balls) gave Pakistan a perfect launching pad as they racked up a blazing 150-run-stand for the 1st wicket in just 14.4 overs.

Brisk cameos from Sohaib Maqsood (19 off 7), Fakhar Zaman (26 off 8), and Mohammad Hafeez (24 off 10) ensured that Pakistan racked up their highest T20I total of 6/232 in 20 overs.

England came out all guns blazing during their run-chase but apart from Liam Livingstone, none of the batters could kick on and make a stellar contribution.

Shaheen Afridi was the pick of the bowlers for Pakistan, as was Mohammad Hasnain, who gave away just 28 runs in his 4 overs besides claiming an important scalp of Moeen Ali.

Shaheen, on the other hand, gave England a couple of blows in the form of Dawid Malan and Jonny Bairstow in his opening spell, before coming back to knock over No.11, Matt Parkinson. He finished with ‘Player of the Match’ winning spell of 3/30 in 3.2 overs.

Liam Livingstone, however, left his mark on the game as the right-hander smashed the fastest fifty (in 17 balls) and fastest ton (in 42 balls) by an English batsman.

It was pure, ruthless hitting by Livingstone but against a rampant Pakistan team that even fielded out of their skins on Friday night, it eventually did not prove to be enough.

And, no wonder, Michael Vaughan was left in awe with the complete contrast in Pakistan’s performance in the ODI series as compared to the first T20I.

Taking to Twitter, Vaughan wrote- ”Pakistan are so unpredictably brilliant to watch … Gone from the local village team to looking like world beaters in a week … !! Love watching them”

Pakistan are so unpredictably brilliant to watch … Gone from the local village team to looking like world beaters in a week … !! Love watching them … #ENGvPAK

— Michael Vaughan (@MichaelVaughan) July 16, 2021

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