Pakistan delivered an inspired all-round performance to rout a ragged England team by eight wickets in a one-sided Champions Trophy semi-final in Cardiff.
Pakistan bowled and fielded tightly to restrict the hosts to a paltry 211 and the lowest-ranked team in the tournament knocked off the runs in style with a massive 12.5 overs to spare.
It was a major disappointment for England, who won all three group matches in their bid to claim a first global 50-over title and had beaten Pakistan in 12 of their last 14 one-day internationals.
They collapsed, however, on a sluggish pitch from 2-128 in sunny conditions that normally favour batsmen and the bowlers failed to repair the damage as Fakhar Zaman and Azhar Ali shared a stand of 118 to lead Pakistan to their target.
“One thing we didn’t do was adapt to conditions, which I thought Pakistan did extremely well,” England captain Eoin Morgan said.
“Full credit to them, they outplayed us on this wicket. 211 wasn’t a good score. 250/270 would have been.”
Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed won the toss and England openers Alex Hales and Jonny Bairstow, replacing the out-of-form Jason Roy, made a solid enough start.
Hitting boundaries proved difficult, however, and a clearly frustrated Hales, on 13, spooned Rumman Raees to cover with a loose drive.
Bairstow, dropped twice, accumulated 43 runs through good shot placement and quick running between the wickets before he pulled seamer Hasan Ali to Mohammad Hafeez at deep square leg.
Joe Root and Morgan continued to score at about five runs an over but Root, on 46, nicked leg-spinner Shadab Khan to wicketkeeper Sarfraz and Morgan (33) aimed an expansive drive at the lively Hasan and gave Sarfraz another catch to leave England in trouble at 4-141.
Jos Buttler (4), Moeen Ali (11) and Adil Rashid (7) fell quickly and Ben Stokes, one of the most destructive batsmen in the world, failed to hit a boundary in a scratchy 34 as the Pakistan bowlers dominated.
Fakhar hit Mark Wood for the first six of the match in the opening over of Pakistan’s innings and he and Azhar played some delightful strokes in a fluent partnership.
Fakhar reached his 50 off 49 balls before being stumped by Buttler off Rashid for 57 but Azhar and Babar Azam calmly continued to milk runs all around the ground as England’s bowlers ran out of ideas.
Azhar, on 76, dragged a delivery from Jake Ball on to his stumps before Babar (38 not out) and Hafeez (31 not out) guided Pakistan home.
“Credit goes to the bowlers and the batters who finished it very well,” Sarfraz said.
“We adapted to the conditions, we knew if we restricted them we could easily chase it down.
“Every game is a knockout game and I told my boys to play their game and not worry about the result.”
India play Bangladesh in the second semi-final in Birmingham on Thursday.
Tanmoy Kar
Guest
Instead of commenting, Virat should practice hard and plan how to beat Pakistan on Sunday!
Arsalan Sajid
Guest
As Pakistan were offered zero chance of knocking off the competition top picks in their semi-final in Cardiff however another wonderful bowling execution and astounding batting from Pakistani top order batsmen helped them to a devastating eight-wicket win and their first final at a noteworthy ODI event since the 1999 World Cup. I think English team had a good chance winning Ct2017 but Pakistani team had other plan for them. I have written a blog on Pakistan`s team journey from notede as number 8th team in the tournament to the final of the tournament. Have a read. https://pakistancricketteamblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/16/resurrection-of-pakistan-cricket-team-in-ct17/
Tanmoy Kar
Guest
England lost due to over-confidence, they have targeted a 300+ score when 260/270 would had been a good target in that pitch. Pakistan's strength is their bowling and they bowled to their extreme limit.
ViratKohli
Roar Rookie
Just want to clear your bias mate
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Not with guys like Virat around, he/she/it always turns everything back to Australia bashing no matter what comment he's replying to.
vikram
Guest
after reading all the comments ...... hay the artical was about eng and pak not aus hmm cant we talk cricket without auss
George
Guest
Sorry, I'll just nod approvingly at The Roar's default jingoism.
ViratKohli
Roar Rookie
Get back to reality now
ViratKohli
Roar Rookie
Unfortunately ICC doesnt give Australia wild card into finals based on prior WC performance - hence Australian team is back home making strategies for $'s.
Mitcher
Guest
Georgie, if you were a fish you wouldn't last too long. Greatest bait taker going round.
Mitcher
Guest
We'll let you look at our 5 world cups Virat. But only for a second lil fella.
Nudge
Guest
Do you mind if I talk facts as well Virat? You're sounding a little jealous fella. The fact is, that in the 11 World cups to this stage, Australia have won a phenomenal 5 of them and played in 7 finals. The next best is India with 2. India have something like 1.3 billion people while little old Oz has 23 million. So India have around 60 times more people than Australia. So that means India have grossly underachieved, or, are not real good at cricket, or Oz is just bloody good at cricket. Your choice out of those three mate?
Savage
Roar Rookie
Ronan,india and australia(full strength and right selection) are clearly two top odi sides in the world.In 50 overs icc tournament(since 2011 wc)india have played 25 matches won 21 lost 3 w/l rartio of 7 which is WAY better than any other team(yes,including australia).england and south africa are good team but lack players who can perform underpressure whereas new zealand have declined since retirement of B mccullum and trent boult and southee have also declined.
ViratKohli
Roar Rookie
well the fact remains that like most teams except England - last match was a virtual knockout and Australia failed to win the crunch game. At no instance they deserved to be in the semis after that result. Besides the facts you can continue with your fairytale
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Spruce - When I said "both were Australia's games" I mean that both washouts were games involving Australia, I wasn't saying that both were games Australia was on the verge of winning or anything like that. Most people talk like Australia definitely would have lost that one and definitely won the Bangladesh one. I don't know that you can be so definite. NZ were definitely on top, but I've seen plenty of teams win matches from much worse positions, but certainly NZ would have been favourites at that point. But even if you gave those results, you'd end up with 3 teams on 2 points and going down to NRR, while the point Bangladesh got saw them through to the semi's.
Bobbo7
Guest
Classic from Pakistan - they were absolutely supreme last night. Took some good catches too. Would have beaten anyone
Farqueue
Guest
I didn't realise that all Australia's world cups were won at home. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
Farqueue
Guest
How many world cups have England won again?
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Actually, no, England were unbeaten in the group stage and lost their first knock out match.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
I never said Australia should have played a 5-match series against England. But most teams had 3 matches to play before either progressing or getting knocked out. While Australia only had one. So leaving winless isn't down to losing 3 matches, it's only down to losing the one and only match they played that was able to complete, and even that came down to D/L with rain interruptions.