SHARJAH // Before the limited-overs leg of this series began, it could be said with something approaching confidence that England’s regeneration after the 2015 World Cup was going a little better than Pakistan’s.
Now, after the final Twenty20 in Sharjah late last night which England completed a 3-0 sweep, it can be said with greater confidence that they are progressing quicker and with more clarity than Pakistan.
That is not to say Pakistan are not progressing – we will get to that. But so dramatic has been England’s turnaround since they were knocked out of the World Cup in the group stages by Bangladesh, that it puts to shade anything else.
The side that lost that game and the side that won the ODI series against Pakistan may as well be two different countries. And they do not look a bad side in the game’s shortest format either.
They had only played four T20Is since the last World Twenty20 and before this series; Pakistan, on the other hand, came in well-grooved, having played 11 games since that last World Twenty20. Much of the transformation can be linked to the captain Eoin Morgan.
Though he also led at the World Cup, the botched circumstances in which he took over from Alastair Cook meant he had no time to put his own ideas into place.
The period since, however, has allowed him not only to recover from a terrible run of form, but also to get his message of playing with greater freedom and less fear across to a newish side.
He has averaged 58 since the World Cup, with a strike rate over 100.
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That has led the way for the batsmen around him and England’s batting, suddenly, looks dynamic and menacing.
Men such as James Taylor, Ben Stokes, Jos Buttler, Jason Roy and Joe Root have ensured that in the ODIs since then, between overs 11-40 their run-rate has been 6.2, far higher than in the period directly before it.
They are hitting twice as many sixes as before, and more hundreds than before: the 12 ODI hundreds they have scored this year is, by some distance, the most for them in a calendar year.
The bowling is not as bright – though Adil Rashid has been admirable – but it has done its job. If it looked good here it is worth remembering Pakistan have a habit of making ordinary bowling look better than it is. Far greater tests will come and the value of dropping Stuart Broad is still not apparent.
Pakistan have far greater problems that cut across both formats. Azhar Ali’s ODI captaincy, foremost, is probably already under more pressure than it should be. If his ODI batting has improved, his on-field captaincy has been ponderous and unimaginative.
It is not his fault that Mohammad Hafeez is not allowed to bowl, or that Saeed Ajmal’s remodelled action has left him, sadly, ineffective. The zing has gone from their attack.
But he should have more control over the batting, and as such, six different opening partners and ten different batsmen in the middle suggest he and the team management are not sure at all of what they are doing.
Similar issues afflict the Twenty20 side, though there at least, Shahid Afridi’s leadership has rediscovered some of its sparkle. Afridi has been the most peripheral he has ever been in the bigger scheme of Pakistan cricket since retiring from one-day cricket after the World Cup.
But two stellar all-round performances in the last two Twenty20 games against England mean, remarkably, that he enters the 20th year of his international career in high spirits.
The World Twenty20, in March next year in India, will be his final jig in international cricket. Pakistan’s fortunes, as ever, will be difficult to extricate from his.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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