England included Jos Buttler and Mark Wood, both back in the side after injury, and the Durham seamer needed just 19 balls to claim his first wicket, his extra pace beating Sharjeel Khan (16) on the pull and taking the edge – his first worldwide scalp since October 2015.
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Roy needed treatment twice from physio Craig de Weymarn as he felt faint after fielding in the heat.
However, as Sharjeel had wasted Pakistan’s lone review of the innings, Babar had to go and Pakistan were now 113 for three off 24 overs.
Opener Alex Hales made his maiden one-day century in that series, but struggled in this summer’s drawn Test series against Pakistan, scoring only 145 runs in eight innings.
Roy sparked England’s chase with three fours in four balls off Umar Gul in the third over of the hosts’ innings. Hales was out for 7 when he guided Gul straight to Mohammad Hafeez at slip.
He was man of the match as England defeated Pakistan in the first ODI, but Jason Roy experienced a dizzy spell during his knock of 65.
He was dropped by Sarfraz Ahmed on 26, the wicketkeeper getting his mitts on the ball at short fine leg after a top edge against Mohammad Amir.
Soon after Ahmed brought up his fifty from 52 balls, the rain came down, stopping the play for about 20 minutes.
Linchpin Root struck a hassle-free 61 before succumbing to Azhar Ali’s easy run out from Morgan’s poor call, but England still coasted home.
But when Morgan dropped the ball into the offside and set off, Root failed to beat Azhar s direct hit.
“One of your top order has to score and bat long, triple figures would be nice and you always build a total when the top order perform”, said the opener. The first, off the bowling of Woakes, was a straightforward chance to Hales in the gully – though he gestured that he hadn’t picked the ball out of the crowd – and then in the following over, Plunkett’s first, Jos Buttler could not hold on to a leg-side nick diving one-handed to his left.
“Steve has a large amount of cricket coming up in the next 12 months and we wanted to find a time for him to freshen up and these last five matches provide a good opportunity to do so”, Marsh said in a statement.
Pakistan will surely look forward to carrying on the good work but this time there won’t be Misbah-ul-Haq to lead from the front.
England could play three spinners with Liam Dawson in line for a debut as he works in tandem with Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid.
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From there the pacy Wood, impressing in his first global since October because of ankle surgery, the increasingly dependable Chris Woakes and Plunkett, who improved after a poor start, restricted Pakistan to only 40 runs in the last seven overs.
