England will look to finally get their final T20 World Cup preparations underway on Saturday when they aim to take on Pakistan in the second of the scheduled four T20 matches with Edgbaston being the venue for game two.
The opening match was washed out in Leeds on Wednesday so we are down to a three match series but both teams will be using this game to finalise their combinations and everything ahead of heading to the Caribbean next week.
England
We are just over a week away from England beginning the defence of their T20 World Cup title and over the next three matches they will be aiming show that they are much better equipped for this title defence than they were for the one in the 50 over competition which couldn’t have gone very much worse if it tried. There are doubts over this England side heading towards the tournament, not least in the bowling which looks like it could be weak if certain players don’t remain fit.
There is no lack of depth to the England batting unit but there are question marks over the form of one or two and it remains to be seen whether elements of the batting has got a little old and needs replacing by new blood. England can lay a marker down here with some strong batting performances because you would imagine that when they get to the World Cup they are going to need to score a lot of runs. Getting their batters into form has to be a main priority in this series.
Pakistan
While England are playing their first T20 matches of the year, Pakistan are playing their second series of the month after they faced Ireland in three games earlier in May. They lost the first match of that series which shows the vulnerability that they have but to their credit they won the last two and started to build up a little bit of momentum, although the washout in Leeds might have curtailed that a little. They have a chance here to continue to build a head of steam.
We saw the Pakistan batting go well the longer that Ireland series went on but that was against a bowling attack that is probably below average. They will face a much better bowling attack here so we will know where their batting is at heading into the tournament. The focus will be on that because we know that they have a very skilful white ball bowling unit, one which will be motivated to go one better than it did in Australia in the last T20 World Cup.
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Team News
England were expected to give Jofra Archer an international recall on Wednesday but with the washout that will probably happen here instead. Phil Salt looks set to partner Jos Buttler at the top of the order but Liam Livingstone could miss out with injury.
Pakistan also have a key bowler back in their ranks for this match with Haris Rauf rejoining the squad for the first time since the Asia Cup last year. They will be keen to get some form into the likes of Azam Khan and Saim Ayub at some point.
Betting
I’m going to tentatively begin the betting in this series because we don’t really know what shape England are in at the minute but I do think that a 363.5 run line could be a nudge on the high side. To be fair, Edgbaston can be a high scoring ground because since that new stand went in one of the corners of the playing arena has been cut by a fair bit but at the same time there has been a lot of rain around England this week and the pitch might just hold up a little which will negate the natural big hitting.
The other thing we have to take into account is not all of these England batters have been massively active recently and those that are aren’t all in great form. Pakistan have got their attack up to speed over in Ireland but when I look at their projected XI for this match I can’t help but feel they are a batter light and there are a couple in their top five who are out of form. I wouldn’t be surprised if the scoring gets better the longer this series goes on but this first game might just be a case of feeling each other out and finding some form in possibly slightly awkward conditions so I’ll play the under here.
Tips
Back Under 363.5 runs for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
