Key events
4th over: England 27-1 (Buttler 12, Jacks 1) Will Jacks in at first drop. This will be England’s top three at the World Cup next month. Wasim is on the money, Jacks clipping a full ball into leg to get off the mark. Just a couple of runs and the wicket off the over. Pakistan punch back.
WICKET! Salt c Shaheen b Imad Wasim (13) England 25-1
Imad Wasim comes on to bowl some spin. Left arm round and slightly jerky action… Salt slaps it aerially into the leg side where Shaheen takes a fine tumbling catch! Pakistan have their first scalp. Salt is angry he didn’t either keep it down or smash it into the stands.
3rd over: England 25-0 (Salt 13, Buttler 12) Afridi is full and Salt drives over mid-on for four. He didn’t get all of it but has enough power that even his mis-hits race away to the fence. Easy now! Salt winds up to go agains and is very nearly cleaned up, an inside edge onto pad saving him, a quick single taken off it. Shot. Buttler steps away and clubs a full ball down the ground for four. Jos’s shoulder shimmying whilst Afridi runs in, this is high octane stuff. Four more! Buttler goes down the ground again for the third boundary of the over. A wild swish of a play and a miss to finish the over.
2nd over: England 12-0 (Salt 8, Buttler 4) Mohammad Amir shares the new ball, he has a slight breeze to run into as opposed to Afridi who has it at his back. Them’s the breaks when you aren’t top dog. Cripes! Buttler nearly chops a full bunger onto his stumps, the ball just sliding down past the timbers. A push to mid-on and they take a single. Amir hustles in and slings one down short with his southpaw action, Salt pulls in front of square for three. Amir angles the ball across both Buttler and Salt, beating them both in his first over and conceding just four runs off it.
1st over: England 8-0 (Salt 5, Buttler 3) Eeesht! Shaheen is fast and full to Phil Salt. A bunted full toss and a swing and a miss make it two dots to begin with. Salt is then nearly outfoxed by a slower ball that he plinks into the air short of mid-on. A scampered single sees him off the mark. Buttler leans on a full ball and guides it through the covers for three. Salt then digs out a toe crunching yorker before going up and over the in-field to clobber four off the final ball.
The players emerge onto the field, a decent crowd in and plenty of support for Pakistan. Great swathes of green shirts in the bleachers. Shaheen Shah Afridi is going to start up, what a sight he is at full tilt. Let’s play!
A slightly guarded but smiling Jofra Archer speaks to his former captain and current Sky Sports pundit Eoin Morgan. He’s been out of the game for so long that he clearly wants to take each game at a time. Kudos to him for putting in the hard yards and solitary hours of rehab to get back out there today. Archer did suggest recently that another injury setback like the ones he has experienced over the last few years would make him seriously consider his future playing the game. I really hope he comes through and has plenty of years worth of injury free playing ahead of him.
Jofra said:
I want to get out there before I can tell you how I feel, I’ve been rehabbing for as long as I can remember, so it is good to be back. The constant robotic routine … you’ve got to get up and keep going, but I’m back here so it has to be worth it.
I have been bowling since November last year properly, but there’s an extra 10% of intensity for big games. Hopefully I can get through it and get on the plane. I have to take it game by game, can’t look too far ahead, but I’ve never played at Kensington [Oval in Barbados] so fingers crossed.”
Confirmed Teams:
England: Jos Buttler (t/wk), Phil Salt, Will Jacks, Jonny Bairstow, Harry Brook, Moeen Ali, Liam Livingstone, Chris Jordan, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Reece Topley
Pakistan: Babar Azam (c), Saim Ayub, Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Fakhar Zaman, Shadab Khan, Azam Khan, Iftikhar Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Haris Rauf, Mohammad Amir
Shadab Khan makes a return for the visitors and Naseem Shah misses out/ is rested in modern parlance.
Pakistan win the toss… and choose to BOWL
A slightly fluffed toss where both captain’s seem to call with the coin in the air. Babar wins it and confirms they will take the field first.
Buttler says he would have chosen to chase too. On Jofra’s return – “Really exciting, he looks great, fit and healthy and raring to go”
Liam Livingstone is in the side for England and Haris Rauf for Pakistan.
James Wallace
Hello everyone and welcome to The Guardian’s OBO coverage of England’s first T20I against Pakistan from Edgbaston. It’s World Cup tune up time! After the rains in Yorkshire kiboshed the scheduled first game in the week all is set fair for the series to get underway in a little over 30 minutes time in Brum.
All eyes are on Jofra Archer.
The bowler has been marking out his run up and looks nailed on to make his return to the England fold – this will mark his first international on home soil since 2020 and his first professional match since May of last year. England’s prospects of retaining their title at next month’s tournament in the USA and Caribbean are considerably improved if the lightning armed Archer is fit and firing.
The toss is about to take place, I’ll confirm the result and the confirmed teams in a jiffy – if you are out there and want to join in the fun this afternoon then do drop me a line at the details on the left of this page. Are you sitting comfortably? Then let’s begin.
Preamble
James will be here shortly. In the meantime read Ali Martin’s preview:
Moeen Ali signed off from the 50-over World Cup with a typically honest admission that England should turn to the next generation. Although as the 36-year-old heads into the Twenty20 equivalent next month – a tournament in which he could captain the side at some point – there are no thoughts of international retirement.
Speaking in India last November, Moeen said the players failed to see “the writing was on the wall” and he would “just start again”. As such, having called time on Test cricket after his final-day Ashes heroics last summer, and currently on a one-year central contract, it raised the question whether next month in the Caribbean will be his last dance.
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