Pakistan will take on England in the first Super Eights game of the ICC World T20 that will be played in Barbados. Pakistan qualified for the Super Eights by beating Bangladesh and then went on to lose to Australia whereas England lost their West Indies match due to rain, and then, more rain meant that the game against Ireland was abandoned and hence the better net run rate saw them through.>
This game will see the two sides look to overcome their issues with the batting. While one did see England score 191 in the first game, one almost gets the sense that they are too reliant on Eoin Morgan in the middle order and that is the reason why most of the top order players go about throwing their bats. >
England will need to bat the 20 overs out on a pitch that assists a lot of pace and will have much more carry than the rest of them in the Caribbean, and this will mean that the side will need to bat a little more patiently than they have been so far.
As compared to that, Pakistan have had a confused looking batting line-up according to me. While Kamran Akmal is the one aggressor in the side, amongst the rest of them, there isn’t anyone who can take the bowling by the scuff of its neck. This means that the side has had to rely on Shahid Afridi, who, to my mind, is no longer a batsman who can consistently give you runs.
Hence, a lot would be expected from the likes of Umar Akmal and Misbah-ul-Haq to use their exuberance and experience and get the middle order going, something that was evidently absent in the previous game.
The bowling strengths of both sides is almost at par, given that the pitch will not assist the spinners as much as it helps the pace bowlers. This is why, it is difficult to choose from between the two sides, and the bookies also seem to think so. Ladbrokes offers 5/6 for an English win over 1/1 (Coral) if Pakistan win the game.