Statistical Highlights - Pakistan v England 2nd T20I

Statistical Highlights – Pakistan v England 2nd T20I: England won the toss for the second time in the series and decided to bat first. The score had reached 47 until Shahid Afridi removed both of the openers. All of the middle order then made valuable contributions notably 38 from James Vince off 24 balls and 33 from Jos Butler off just 22 balls to post a respectable total of 172. Shahid Afridi took three wickets to become the joint leading wicket-taker of the format.

Pakistani openers counter-attacked England’s pacers right from the word go and notched 54 in the batting power play with the loss of a single wicket. Adil Rashid and Stephan Parry then slowed things down to increase the required run-rate. No one from Pakistan’s middle order took the charge to England and gave away their wickets cheaply until Afridi arrived at 54 runs required from 20 balls with 4 wickets in hand. He made a valuable contribution of 24 in just 8 balls to give Pakistan hopes of chasing it down. Chris Woakes had to defend 11 runs in the last over against Sarfraz Ahmed and Anwar Ali and he succeeded. England won by 3 runs and gained an un-accessible lead in the series 2-0.

Here are the statistical highlights of the match:

New Captain – Jos Butler is England’s 9^th T20I captain.

Leading wicket-taker – Shahid Afridi claimed his 85^th T20I scalp today, making him the leading wicket-taker in this format alongside his country-mate Saeed Ajmal.

735 – Number of days since Shahid Afridi last took 3 or more wickets in a single innings. Last time was vs South Africa at Capetown in November 2013.

54 – Pakistan’s highest power-play score in T20Is in UAE.

A First – Ahmed Shehzad and Riffatullah Mohmand were both stumped out. It was the first time in the history of T20Is that both the opening batsmen were out stumped.

Leading run-scorer – Mohammad Hafeez (1431 runs) is back as the leading run-scorer for Pakistan in T20Is surpassing Umar Akmal (1417 runs).

818 – Number of days since an English bowler took 6 or more wickets in a single T20I series. Liam Plunkett has 6 in the first two games of the series. Jade Dernbach took 6 against Australia in August 2013.

Momentum – England has now won all of its last 5 T0Is.

Difficult to beat – Pakistan has now lost 9 of its 12 T20Is against England.

Upper hand – England has now won 7 of its last 8 T20Is against Pakistan.

Tough opposition – England has never lost a T20I series against Pakistan (containing at least 2 matches) and they will not lose this one either.