England vow to ‘stay true’ to beliefs

Pakistan thrashed England by 8 wickets in the first semi-final of the ICC Champions Trophy cricket tournament.

If India wins Thursday’s’s match, one can expect a cracker of a final between the two arch-rivals on Sunday at The Oval.

Having transformed their one-day game over the past two years on the back of a batting mindset that captain Eoin Morgan last week labelled “reckless” at times, England’s power-hitters were unable to get moving on a sluggish pitch at Sophia Gardens.

“I thought we bowled OK but certainly defending 200 we have to produce a well above-par bowling performance”.

“I don’t think there was any home advantage”, Morgan said.

Morgan, who was one of Pakistan seamer Hasan Ali’s three victims, refused to completely absolve his batsmen of any blame as they lost their final eight wickets for the addition of just 83 runs.

Joe Root, who top-scored for England with 46, spoke afterwards of his extreme disappointment but hopes he and the team can learn from the setback as they eye the chance to lift the World Cup on home soil in 2019. England was all out in 49.5 overs with a score of 211. “My heart aches to hear these sounds again in stadiums of my Pakistan!” he further said referring to the fact that Pakistan don’t play their home matches at home but in Dubai.

Big-hitting Stokes was in a restrained mood, failing to hit a single boundary and scoring 11 singles at the start.

“You never know – somewhere along the line if one of those (young) guys comes up with the goods they could find themselves in the team”.

As expected Azhar was a little cautious, whereas Zaman did not hold back, smashing the ball everywhere.

Meanwhile, Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed had no qualms about the pitch and was more than happy at his team’s progression towards their first final at a major ODI event since 1999 World Cup.

Azhar was responsible for the first three of the match, from a pull at Mark Wood, and Fakhar added a six with a mistimed hook at the England strike bowler.

Pakistan bowled and fielded tightly to restrict the hosts to a paltry total of 211 all out and the lowest-ranked team in the tournament knocked off the runs in style with a massive 12.5 overs to spare.

As wickets fell, England naturally saw the scoreboard stutter, with Morgan’s side slipping from 128-2 to 181-7 in an 16-over spell – a struggle that ultimately cost them.

It was the eighth time that Hasan has collected three wickets or more in his 20 ODIs, and teammates see much more to come from the 23-year-old bowler.

“Credit goes to the bowlers”.

It was just too easy for Pakistan, who won their third straight game at the tournament. Azhar Ali smashed Stokes for another six and a four in the 13th over as Pakistan moved to 78-0.

Ben Stokes, usually one of the most destructive batsmen in world cricket, needed 64 balls to scrape together 34 runs and he failed to muster a single boundary on a pitch Morgan described as hard to bat on.

Mohammad Hafeez, (left) celebrates hitting the winning runs with Babar Azam in their eight-wicket win over England in Cardiff.