That tournament, surely, is the sole focus throughout this three-match series.
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Despite being the last of the six England batsmen who made it to the crease, he top scored, with an inventive 53 from 25 balls. England rested regular captain Eoin Morgan and handed the captaincy to Jos Buttler who did not play in the first game.
Buttler said: “I’ll take that”.
Batting first after winning the toss for the second consecutive time, the tourists posted a score of 172 for 8 in their allotted 20 overs.
In his next over Afridi got rid of another opener, Jason Roy aiming to leg too, but getting a faint under-edge to juggling wicketkeeper Sarfraz Ahmed. Roy was the next man to fall and after hitting two extremely powerful sixes he looked to speed up even more.
Afridi’s brief but withering assault – 24 off just eight balls, with three sixes in one over off Woakes – threatened to turn the tide decisively.
Vince was furious with himself but impressed many. Vince built on his 41 on debut with another explosive innings. Root also fell for a relatively poor 20 as he also tried to clear the midwicket boundary.
India’s spinners again ran rampant as they maintained their stranglehold over the Proteas batsmen with all ten wickets.
It was a topsy-turvy match for Chris Woakes, who finished on 15 not out, 13 of them in the last over, when he batted. Pakistan chased down 170-180 target four times.
Vince, dropped at long-on by Sohail Tanvir on 15, became Afridi’s third victim via a easy catch at long leg. Spin continued to produce for England.
Malik was the next man to fall.
England were favourites for a comfortable win when Malik pulled Plunkett to Billings in the deep.
But Billings, in for Buttler, dominated a partnership of 65 in six overs with Morgan to race to his first worldwide 50 in 24 balls and give England a total they could hope after all to defend.
He was eventually dismissed by a sharp catch from an off-balance Liam Plunkett off the bowling of Chris Woakes, whose over had cost 22 runs. Pakistan needed 11 to win.
Afridi was as wily and economical as ever with the ball for Pakistan. Woakes was on a hat-trick. We didn’t play our best, we certainly weren’t as fluent as we would like, but we got up to a good score. The third ball was a single.
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Sarfraz Ahmed (19) got the equation down to 11 off five and Ali (3) and Tanvir (6) chipped away at it incrementally to set up a nerve-jangling finale. Another single. 5 from 2. His was the seminal effort in England’s 14-run win over Pakistan.
