Watch cricket video highlights between Pakistan vs England. Pakistan tour of England first twenty/20, played at Leeds.
The weather is the biggest unanswered question. Leeds saw cloud cover on Tuesday, and Wednesday looks to be mostly cloudy with showers. Saim Ayub’s comeback to form, after he passed up the chance to put Mohammad Haris in the team, is greatly needed, as this game is Pakistan’s final before the official squad announcement. Rauf is anticipated to make a comeback, perhaps marking his first appearance alongside Naseem Shah and Shaheen Afridi since the Asia Cup. After recovering from a minor knee injury, Liam Livingstone will not be rushed back by England. Due to a minor ailment in his own knee, Mark Wood, who hasn’t played since March, will be handled throughout the series. Buttler has declared his intention to hold the wicket.
The previous time England played Pakistan in this format, the attendance was close to 90,000, with the possibility of a global viewership in the hundreds of millions. What was on the line mattered, as seen by the passionate English celebrations and the tears shed by Pakistanis during the 2022 T20 World Cup final at the MCG. That won’t exactly be the case on Wednesday at Headingley, and not only because the weather in Yorkshire might make a game entirely impossible. In the year and a half that followed, a lot happened, but not much of it strengthened these teams’ claims to be World Cup winners and runners-up.
Out of a potential nine T20I series, the two have won two together, and since they played at the MCG, each has a sizable losing record. At the first hurdle, they were both out of the next ODI World Cup. The match-winner for England from that balmy Melbourne night is not in the T20I lineup at the moment, while the captain of Pakistan was momentarily deposed before mysteriously regaining the throne a few months later. It’s dangerous to evaluate a squad based only on T20I performance in one-sided matches; even this series is essentially a prelude to the T20 World Cup, which is less than two weeks away. However, both teams are taking the series very seriously and would profit from a series victory considering their difficulties in Twenty20 international cricket.
Although they did play a five-match T20I series in December against the West Indies, co-hosts of the 2018 World Cup, England hasn’t played a T20I this year. The last thing Jos Buttler’s team wants is a T20 World Cup defense that is as disorganized as their disastrous ODI World Cup defense. Recalling players ahead of schedule put England at danger of angering the Indian Premier League, but Jofra Archer was handled well enough to be able to play in his first T20 match in more than a year, just before the World Cup.
Pakistan never exactly has the luxury of not taking any international matches seriously due to their hectic administrative structure and passionate fan base, but with the World Cup quickly approaching, a bilateral T20I series could not be more important. Pakistan, after all, is still the only one of the 20 teams that hasn’t revealed its World Cup roster. They want to hold off on revealing their lineup until after this series’ opening game in order to ensure that their choices are based on as much information as possible. And in the end, everything about this series will be tilted toward that World Cup. Leeds isn’t even near to that summit, but that evening at the MCG gives both sides confidence that they have what it takes to stand atop the mountain. It might also be a crucial stepping stone.
After a lengthy absence, Pakistan’s express speed bowler is likely to make his comeback in this match. The past six months have been turbulent for Haris Rauf; he lost his core contract due to a board conflict, then had a shoulder injury during the PSL, and finally had his central contract reinstated. Although he went to Ireland with the group, he wasn’t well enough to play. His injury appears to have recovered more quickly than the original diagnosis, so it will be interesting to watch a pace-off between two of cricket’s most menacing bowlers.
It has been a year since his final Twenty20 match and four since his final international match on English territory. Leeds’ main attraction will undoubtedly be Jofra Archer, after skipper Jos Buttler announced he will make his eagerly awaited comeback in the opening match. It seems like England have finally been able to get Archer back to full health after a protracted injury nightmare, and based on what his teammates are saying about him, he’s as dangerous a possibility as he ever was. Sam Curran spoke about the importance of the “fear factor” that his increased speed creates in the opposition, and a cloudy Headingley game would be the perfect opportunity to ease him in.
Match abandoned without a ball bowled
