Eoin Morgan led England to a marmalizing victory over Pakistan at Old Trafford in the second T20, with 66 off just 33 balls, sweeping, spraying, outside edging and generally making whoopee in a fearless chase – though not before he had walked in on a hat-trick ball and survived the next by the whim of the umpire’s call. The five-wicket victory with five balls to spare was England’s highest run chase against Pakistan and was the highest run chase by any team against Pakistan. This shadow England side continues to play in their inspirational captain’s image.
Old Trafford was filled for World Cup games last year, a skeletal and rammed party stand soaring raucous row after raucous row, as West Indies slipped just short in a thriller against New Zealand and Morgan himself frying panned Afghanistan into the far distance with 17 sixes. This year, some padded sponsored space fills the gap where the stand would be. Behind it nets, red brick houses and the late-summer trees of Trafford, where the world burbles on outside the bio-bubble. Inside it, swathes of white seats and stewards, the watching hills of the Peak District the nearest thing to an audience, though the booming tunes remain.
Tom Banton and Jonny Bairstow had jump-started the England innings, chasing 196, with 65 off the power play, taking chances, but winning them, balls falling just short of fielders, chasing their own shadows. Where Bairstow swivel-pulled, Banton nudged behind square, where Bairstow nudged to the boundary, Banton swat-switch-swept for six.
Pakistan needed a break, and they got one in the seventh over when Shadab Khan picked off both openers with successive balls, as both launched into ill-advised sweeps. Bairstow top edged to Imad Wasim for 44, then Banton swished, missed and was hit low on the right thigh, given out both on the field and on review. Morgan walked in for the hat-trick ball, but rode his luck on the following ball, surviving both lbw and review. It was to be a turning point, as he cut a swathe through the Pakistan attack, reaching his 14th fifty in T20s with a walloping boundary off a low full toss, with Dawid Malan playing the sensible older brother, pouncing hungrily on the bad ball. The pair of them rocked England towards victory, until Morgan over-reached to deep square, but it was too late for Pakistan. Sam Billings, caught at backward point, and Moeen Ali, clopping to mid-wicket, fell cheaply, but Malan was still there at the end, 54 not out.
Earlier Babar Azam and Mohammad Hafeez, young(ish) pup and old(ish) master, had taken it in turns to pancake and then spatulate the England bowling attack on a flattish pitch with a screaming outfield after Morgan had won the toss and decided to chase. Before the naming of the white-ball squads for the series against Australia, England’s bowling attack did not cover themselves in glory, with boundary balls landing early in the over with remarkable frequency. Babar pulled the very first ball of the match from Saqib Mahmood for four over the midwicket boundary, and continued in the same vein, chips, clips and glorious late cuts. He and Fakhar Zaman took 51 off the power play until Fakhar top-edged to the lanky Banton off Adil Rashid, just after he had swung him for six.
Babar continued, balletic footwork and stretch preventing him from being stumped, and he pulled and then off-drove Rashid to reach his 50 off just 37 balls. Mohammad Hafeez, eye now in, snapped the returning Mahmood for six, cracking the ball, a ringmaster with his trusty whip. Babar miscued Rashid to a grateful Billings and Hafeez then soared into this shots, all wristy elegance and stylish shapes, a ramp even – at the grand age of 39 – to reach fifty off 26 balls until he holed out to a military moustached Tom Curran, to the penultimate ball of the innings. An intelligent last over from Curran, conceding just scampered runs, prevented Pakistan reaching 200. It seemed perhaps enough, it was not.
The match was broadcast live on BBC One for the first time in 21 years. The last came during the World Cup of 1999 when England fell at the first hurdle, failing to qualify for the knockout stage of their own competition for the first time in the tournament’s history, victims of a timid net run rate, with barely a whimper. This time around, England’s batsmen have learnt to brutalise.
• This article was amended on 1 September 2020. Eoin Morgan survived a review on his second ball, rather than on the hat-trick ball he faced after walking out as an earlier version said. This has been corrected.
