The Karachi leg of the England tour of Pakistan ends on Sunday when the two nations meet in the fourth T20 of the series before they head to Lahore for the final three matches next week. This match determines whether we go there all square or with England 3-1 ahead.
That is because England won the third match very convincingly to open up a 2-1 lead and they have the chance to go two up with three to play with another win here. A Pakistan win has it all to play for when we get to Lahore.
Pakistan
We’ve had one good match in three from Pakistan in this series and they’ll be looking for much more consistency than that over the final four matches before they get to the T20 World Cup in Australia. It isn’t a coincidence that the match they were dominant in was the one where their opening pair did all the work and the two where they were indifferent and well beaten was when the openers couldn’t bat deep into the innings together.
That isn’t a new problem and while there have been some who have criticised the openers for not scoring quicker, I think this series so far has highlighted exactly why they are unable to do that – it is a lack of trust in those who come after them and a lack of form of those players. The other issue Pakistan are having is their bowling has gone round the park in the last two matches and all of a sudden things are beginning to unravel at the wrong time.
England
In the main I’m sure England will be delighted with their efforts in this series. These aren’t conditions they naturally thrive in so to win two of the opening three matches is a real feather in their cap. The one match they lost they didn’t exactly let themselves down, they just ran into two class acts who were right on top of their game, and even then things could have been different had their held their catches. They didn’t and paid a heavy price.
You can never ask more of a side to bounce back from a disappointing display with an emphatic win straight after and that is exactly what England did in the third game so they should be delighted with that. They filled their team up with more firepower in that third match and were able to have the Pakistan players under pressure throughout the innings, although they were under it anyway because of the brilliant way England batted.
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Team News
Pakistan will desperately be hoping that Shadab Khan is fit for this match because Usman Qadir isn’t cutting the mustard. Naseem Shah might come back into the side while the middle order is likely to be rotated as the hosts search for the best combination.
England are likely to rest Mark Wood after his first match in seven months in the last game. Olly Stone and Tom Helm are the two quicks yet to feature in the series. They might also decide to rest Sam Curran with David Willey a natural replacement.
Betting
Much like the last match of this series I previewed which was the second one, I still don’t trust the Pakistan batting enough to get involved in the markets which require them to be good but with the way England are rotating their bowlers I’m not convinced they are going to be at full strength in this match which puts me off backing England. I think what we have seen is the Pakistan openers are just too crucial to the way the match plays out for comfort.
I’ll go with what we’ve seen in the series so far and that is the English batters enjoying themselves and hitting a lot of boundaries. The line for their fours is 15.5 which they have covered in all three matches, almost doubling that total in the third game on Friday and I expect them to cover it again on what should be a fresh pitch to finish off this leg of the tour. While England are rotating their bowlers, their batting resources aren’t as deep but even if they make changes there they are bringing either Alex Hales back or giving Jordan Cox a debut and they are both boundary hitters. I expect England to cover this line once again.
Tips
Back England – Over 15.5 fours for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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