Tourists win T20 series in Dubai

Root’s replacement, James Vince, also impressed with 41 on debut to help England from 19-3 to a total of 160-5.

The win is England’s fifth consecutive T20 victory as they go into the World T20 in India in March.

The introduction of Afridi (3-15) brought a wicket right away as Alex Hales (11) was caught plumb in front and by the end of the powerplay phase, England reached 45 for one.

The wicket took Afridi ahead of team-mate Saeed Ajmal to become the highest wicket taker in global T20 cricket.

Liam Plunkett and Reece Tropley bagged three wickets each while Stephen Parry and Moeen Ali shared three wickets between themselves.

That set up an exhilarating final two overs and a simple equation: could Pakistan score the 25 runs required to win or would England bowl tightly enough to keep them in check? England’s innings contained nine fours and as many sixes, so 90 of their 172 runs were not really – theoretically – “runs” at all.

A remarkable piece of fielding from Umar Akmal had the packed crowd in Dubai on their feet.

England won the toss and opted to bat first. Allied to their earlier ODI series victory in the UAE, it has been a good few weeks for Eoin Morgan’s short format teams. Also included in the team were David Willey, Adil Rashid and Chris Woakes.

Captian Afridi took both openers out in his first spell.

Pakistan will seek to bounce back and level the T20 series against England in the second match at the Dubai International Stadium on Friday.

“I’ll take one win from one match as captain”.

“We didn’t play our best throughout the game”. For Woakes to come back for the last over after getting a beating from Afridi says a lot about him. Replacing Root at No 3, he had a maiden 50 in his sights until he was bowled aiming a big hit at a slower ball from Wahab.

After a Jos Buttler single, he unfurled the shot of the match against the second ball of the 13th, a stunning maximum between the fielders at deep cover. Hopefully today we did that. This was a closer game. “I know we lost this game but we’ve got some positive things from it”, he said.

“I think we try to teach them and give them full information but it goes down to the system, it’s a matter of our system which needs to be looked at”.

Mushtaq, however, blamed the poor system of domestic cricket in Pakistan.

‘The two T20 games over the summer highlighted the talent we have against two great sides in New Zealand and Australia.

“As long as that continues, and we’re really honest with ourselves and learn along the way, it will hold us in good stead for the Twenty20 World Cup”.