ICC World Cup 2019: Pakistan beats England by 14 runs

The Pakistani fans breathed a sigh of relief. Putting an end to its losing streak, Pakistan beat England by 14 runs in the 6th match of ICC World Cup 2019. The match was played at Trent Bridge, Nottingham on the 6th of June 2019.   

Mohammad Hafeez was declared as the man of the match in a match in which Pakistan’s batting fired on all cylinders. The manner in which Pakistan surrendered against West Indies in their first world cup match, not many expected them to beat top ranked and tournament favourites, England. Infact Pakistan had lost their last eleven matches on the trot and among these eleven losses was a comprehensive 5-0 loss to England. 

Although none of the Pakistani batsmen scored a century but they still managed to put up a score of 348 for the loss of 8 wickets. On the other hand, although two of England’s batsmen scored centuries, they fell short by 14 runs. It was not only Pakistan’s batsmen who gave a good performance, even their bowlers made it count when it mattered most by taking wickets at regular intervals except for a brief period during which Joe Root and Jos Buttler dominated the proceedings. It was a day on which both the teams made plenty of mistakes and the team which made fewer mistakes came out victorious. 

Pakistan Innings 

Pakistan’s openers, Imam- ul-Haq and Fakhar Zaman gave a solid start to the innings by scoring 82 runs for the first wicket. Babar Azam and Mohammad Hafeez provided further momentum to the innings by scoring 63 and 84 runs respectively. Shoaib Malik’s half century ensured that Pakistan’s goes past the 300-run mark and when it looked as if Pakistan will score around 375 runs, English Bowlers struck by picking up four wickets for 37 runs. Pakistan’s innings ended at a respectable score of

England Innings 

The Favourites opened with Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow.  England got its major shock when Roy was dismissed in the second over of the match by Shadab at a personal score of 8 runs. Bairstow got a good start but didn’t last long and was caught by Sarfaraz of Riaz’s ball when he had scored 32 runs. Skipper Morgan scored 9 runs off 18 balls before being bowled by Hafeez. Uch was expected from inform batsmen, Ben Stokes, who was the man of the match in England’s previous match against South Africa, but he belied all expectations and returned to the pavilion after scoring just 13 runs. Although wickets were falling at one end, Joe Root, who was dropped in the 6th over of the match, when he had scored just one run, was going strong at the other end. He found an able partner in the form of Jos Buttler who came at the fall of Stoke’s wicket. The partnership between Joe Root and Jos Buttler was the brightest moment of the English Innings. They score 130 runs and when it looked that these two players will take England to victory, Root gave a simple catch to Hafeez off Shadab’s ball. . After completing a well-deserved century, Butler was also out in a similar fashion as Joe Root when he gave a simple catch to Wahab Riaz off Amir. The later order of English Batsmen put up a brave fight but achieving a target of 349 runs was too much for their asking. The innings ended at 334 for the loss of 9 wickets and England lost the contest by 14 runs.