England’s first limited overs outing of the winter takes place on Wednesday when they face Pakistan in the first of four ODIs in Abu Dhabi.
Pakistan head into the format where they are historically much stronger buoyed by the fact that they owned England in the recent Test series and they will be looking to build on that and continue the momentum they are beginning to build up under new captain Azhar Ali.
England will hope to put that Test series behind them and build on the impressive performances they produced in the 50 over games earlier in the year as they continue their improvement in this format of the game.
Pakistan will have a bit more firepower with the ball in this ODI with Mohammad Irfan back in the side. Along with Wahab Riaz there is now some real pace and spite in the attack which compliments the wily spin of Yasir Shah to perfection. If there is a weakness in this Pakistan side it could come in a slight lack of genuine batting depth.
In many ways England are the exact opposite here. They have all the batting depth a side needs but with no Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Mark Wood or Steven Finn their attack looks very inexperienced and quite weak. That will put the pressure on their batsmen to put up a big total.
The Sheikh Zayed Stadium is the venue for both this match and the next one in the series but that might not favour Pakistan as their record here is indifferent to say the least. They have won 12 ODIs on this ground but lost 15. England in contrast have played here twice and won them both.
England were indebted to a couple of Alastair Cook centuries on those occasions which emphasises the need for their top order to produce in this match.
I think England will go well enough with the bat in this series but I’m really concerned about their bowling attack and while this Pakistan side might not be full of big hitters they have a lot of excellent strike rotators and boundary finders in their side.
One advantage England might have is that Pakistan’s batting has been frail under pressure in this format for an awful long time but that advantage is negated by England’s preference to bat second due to the weakness of their bowling attack.
In the end this is going to come down to who bowls the best I believe and I don’t see this inexperienced England attack outbowling the likes of Irfan, Shah, Riaz and even Malik and co so I’ll take Pakistan in this opener.
Given the hitting power England have in their side I’m surprised they are odds against to hit the most sixes. Gone are the days where Pakistan have genuine power hitters in their side with the likes of Misbah, Shahid Afridi, Abdul Razzaq et al all long into retirement in this format of the game.
Contrast that to England who hit big all the way down so they won’t be too disadvantaged in terms of six hitting even if they lost a couple of early wickets. We saw in the summer that even when five or six down England will keep attacking so I’ll take them to hit more sixes than a much lighter and less powerful Pakistan line up.
As a final bet I’m going to take David Willey to be the top England bowler. It took Willey a long time for the selectors to notice him but now that they have he is becoming a focal part of the bowling attack.
Willey has 12 wickets in his six ODIs so far and there isn’t a single one where he hasn’t taken at least one wicket which highlights his quality with the ball. The new ball does swing in the Emirates which will help Willey and with no standout experienced seamer up against him the 4/1 on the new Yorkshire star taking the most wickets looks good to me especially if Pakistan target the spinners as they’ve said they will.
Back Pakistan to win 1st ODI for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Boylesports
Back England Most sixes for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Bet365
Back D.Willey Top England Bowler for a 2/10 stake at 5.00 with Betfred
Blog cricket YTD: +34.23pts
