FANTASY
Follow UsAfter a one-sided One-Day International (ODI) series, England and Pakistan go up against each other in the first of the three-match T20 International (T20I) series at Trent Bridge, Nottingham on Friday (July 16).
England go into the series with a full-fledged side after the Eoin Morgan-led team completed their isolation following a Covid-19 scare. However, Ben Stokes, who led England in the ODI series has not been picked as he still needs some time to recover from his finger injury.
Pakistan have included the likes of Sharjeel Khan and Mohammad Hafeez to further bolster their squad in the shortest format and will hope for a better showing this time around.
England have absolutely bossed Pakistan in T20Is, having won 12 of the 18 encounters against them. However, it’s all even-steven in the last five matches with both winning two matches apiece, with one yielding no result.
T20I head-to-head
Overall: Matches 18 | England 12 wins | Pakistan 5 wins | NR 1
Last five T20Is: England 2 | Pakistan 2 | NR 1
Suggested teams
While you could go for the above team, you also have the option of choosing your own team from Cricket.com’s Fantasy Research Centre. Based on algorithms, we have come up with one team.
Ground details and Team combination
Only 11 T20Is have been played at Trent Bridge so far and out of those, England have played just twice, winning once. This will be the first T20I at this venue since 2012.
Hence, if we look at the T20 Blast matches played here this year, it suggests an even contest between pacers and spinners with the former having picked up close to 57% of the wickets. The fast bowlers have struck once every 28.9 runs, 17.7 balls apart. The spinners, on the other hand have picked up a wicket every 25.7 runs – slightly better than the quicks, but when it comes to the balls per wicket ratio, they are slightly worse off, striking once every 19.5 deliveries.
However, the spinners (7.9) are well ahead when it comes to the economy rates when pit against the pacers (9.8).
It would be advisable to pick a balanced side. A couple of spinners along with three quicks including all-rounders should ideally be the way to go.
Captain
Jos Buttler scored an excellent unbeaten 68 in the T20I against England at Cardiff, before leaving the bubble due to injury. He holds a massive threat at the top. No England player has scored more runs in the first six overs than Buttler in T20Is, notching up 285 runs at a strike-rate of 156.6. Moreover, he has scored three fifties from his last five matches and the fact that he is safe as house behind the wickets Is an added advantage.
Our Criclytics Player Projector predicts Buttler will score 23-35 runs in this match.
X-Factors
A specialist at the death, Chris Jordan is a valuable asset for England. Other than being a gun fielder, Jordan’s knack of picking up wickets especially at the death could derail the opposite team’s plans. In T20Is since 2020, Jordan has struck 10 times between overs 16-20 and he has done so at a strike-rate of 18.8. He’s coming at the back off a three-wicket haul in the T20 Blast match against Essex a week ago and in the series against Sri Lanka, he picked up a wicket in all the three matches.
Our Criclytics Player Projector predicts Jordan will pick up 1-2 wickets runs in this match.
Coming at the back of an excellent Pakistan Super League (PSL) 2021, where he won the player of the tournament, Sohaib Maqsood’s presence in the middle-order could be a pivotal one. Only Babar Azam 279) scored more runs than Maqsood (234) in the middle-overs in the recently-concluded PSL. He managed just 46 runs from three innings in the ODI series, but Maqsood is a different beast when it comes to T20s and he might just show us that on Friday.
Our Criclytics Player Projector predicts Buttler will score 41-61 runs in this match.
No fast bowler has ore wickets than Haris Rauf (25) in T20Is since 2020. While he may go for a few runs, Rauf has been consistent with his wicket-taking, thus becoming one of the most trustworthy bowler for Pakistan over the last couple of years. After going wicketless in the first ODI against England, he bounced back in the next two matches, picking up a total of six wickets. He looks to be in good stead going into the T20Is.
Our Criclytics Player Projector predicts Jordan will pick up 0-1 wickets runs in this match.
