Before England fly, they soared. Jos Buttler’s side will head to Barbados on Friday to defend their T20 World Cup title with confidence buoyed by a comprehensive victory over Pakistan at the Oval that concluded an abbreviated, rain-affected but nevertheless hugely encouraging buildup.
The conditions they faced on a chilly evening in London – the match stretched to breaking point the definition of warm-up, with some batters awaiting their turn in the middle resorting to huddling under blankets – are unlikely to be replicated in the Caribbean, but they will certainly travel in high spirits.
An impressive display in the field was followed by an emphatic one with the bat, supercharged by Buttler and Phil Salt scoring 78 runs in the first six overs, England’s all-time third-highest powerplay total and the second-highest ever conceded by Pakistan.
England replaced Reece Topley with Mark Wood in their only change from the only previous game in this series not to have been rained off, at Edgbaston last Saturday.
Wood had not played a T20 of any kind for 13 months and had managed only five since the 2022 T20 World Cup, and he started this one with a suitable explosion of pent-up energy, launching rockets from one end while Jofra Archer slung arrows from the other.
For a while it was not clear which pair of openers would produce the more sprightly start: the bowlers reached dizzying speeds, Wood clocked at 96mph in his second over, but Mohammad Rizwan and Babar Azam refused to be cowed. That ball was driven square by Rizwan for a second successive boundary, then in the following over, bowled by Chris Jordan, Azam also hit successive boundaries, in the process taking himself past 4,000 career runs in the format – India’s Virat Kohli is the only man to have beaten him to the mark and Rohit Sharma, 26 away, is the only other within 400 of it.
There were two boundaries in the next over as well, and the one after that. With a single ball of the powerplay remaining Pakistan were 59 without loss, and on top.
It was Archer’s second over, and if he had been making the ball move what he shifted now was momentum. He took a bit of pace off, and instead of nudging the ball past Adil Rashid at short third Babar diverted it straight to him. Rashid himself dealt with the other opener in the next over, spinning the ball through the gate and into the top of middle and off. Fakhar Zaman, Shadab Khan and Azam Khan swiftly followed, the latter victim of a brilliantly accurate, vicious short ball into the body from Wood. From being 59 without loss after 35 balls, after 65, the last of them nicely cut for four by Iftikhar Ahmed, Pakistan were 95 for five.
That Iftikhar boundary was off the first ball back after a brief rain break, and for a while it seemed that Usman Khan and Iftikhar had been refreshed by a quick spray of drizzle and an inspiring pep-talk in the dressing room. But the game was definitively turned in England’s favour by the decision by Pakistan’s batters to target the back-up spin of Liam Livingstone.
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It is fair to say this did not go entirely to plan: Usman Khan sent the ball too close to Jordan (not close at all, really, but with Jordan it is best not to take chances) before Shaheen Shah Afridi heaved across the line and missed. Livingstone claimed a double-wicket maiden, and from there the innings rather petered out.
The briefest glance at the scoreboard will tell you that England’s response started excellently, but it was not instantly and absolutely convincing: twice in the first three overs bowlers found Buttler’s leading edge, only for the ball to plop safely to earth, and the captain’s first boundary came off the outside edge.
Meanwhile there more worrying signs for Pakistan: overthrows in the first over and a series of errors from Azam behind the stumps, most glaringly fluffing a straightforward catch off Buttler – another edge – in the ninth over, bowled by Haris Rauf. Within three more balls Buttler had sent yet another edge past Azam for another four, and another still straight to him, this time held. Buttler’s performance could perhaps be described as unconvincing, but given that he scored 39 runs at a strike rate of 195 it would seem churlish.
Salt settled more quickly, and he scored thrillingly carefree sixes off successive overs from Mohammad Amir and Naseem Shah. Two balls into the seventh over, and five runs from a half-century, he pulled Rauf straight to midwicket. By the time Buttler fell England needed 57 runs, had 11 overs to do it and the game was little more than a procession, but the final bonus was that Jonny Bairstow, their least convincing batter at Edgbaston, found some form along the way, hitting three sixes on his way to an unbeaten 28.