England raced to a 1-0 lead in their T20 series with Pakistan on Thursday and the home side will have to bounce back quickly when the sides meet again on Friday afternoon else they will be out of the series before the final match on Monday.
Pakistan will be ruing some soft dismissals with the bat in the first game which included yet another calamitous run out, which seems to dog their batting efforts at the minute. They were also made to regret not taking a couple of chances they had in the field.
England will take an awful lot of confidence from the fact that they won with something to spare but did so both with resting some big players such as Joe Root and Jos Buttler and also that they bounced back from a horror start which had them 19-3 at one stage.
Pakistan were without Shoaib Malik for the opening match and common logic would suggest he will miss out here too given that the match comes just 24hrs after the previous one. After seeing how the wicket played in the first game you would think Pakistan will bring a spinner into their side, probably for Imran Khan.
It remains to be seen whether England recall the likes of Jos Buttler and Joe Root or if they give them both the weekend off and maybe bring them back for the last match on Monday. James Vince and Sam Billings made big impacts in their places and it would be harsh on them to be dropped now so England could be unchanged.
As with the first T20 this second game comes from the Dubai International Cricket Stadium. I didn’t see another pitch being prepared so I am guessing that this match will take place on the same track so spin will be a feature of the occasion.
I took Pakistan for the first match of the series but I wouldn’t have gone near them had the injury to Shoaib Malik been made public early enough. I think he’s a big player for the Asian side and until we know he’s back I’m not going to touch them. The problem is we don’t really know how either of these sides will line up so I’ll go to the side markets here.
There were 36 boundaries in the first match of the series which wasn’t a bad number given both sides were three down inside the opening powerplay. It would be strange to imagine both sides missing out at the top of the innings again so I expect to see more boundaries here.
The wicket was still playing well at the end of the first match and the straight boundaries in particular are well within reach so I expect to see at least 36 boundaries again here and probably a few more.
Back Over 35.5 boundaries for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Blog cricket YTD: +26.02pts
