England’s Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow struck half centuries to guide the hosts to a four-wicket victory over Pakistan in the fourth one-day global in Leeds on Thursday as they went 4-0 ahead in the five-match series.
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Jonny Bairstow is determined to nail down a place in England’s one-day team after his latest “supersub” display helped condemn Pakistan to a defeat on his Headingley home ground.
Mohammad Irfan, who suffered cramps at Headingley after just five overs, has returned home.
Azhar Ali said that the series against England was hard. Only the top-eight sides earn their berths while the other two spots will be decided in a qualifying event in Bangladesh in 2018.
By contrast they are a lowly ninth in the ODI table, with the 1992 champions in danger of failing to qualify automatically for the 2019 World Cup in England.
However, even a cursory look at the scores in the series reveal that it is the batting discipline that has let Pakistan down.
“We lost a lot of momentum by losing wickets in the fashion we did”, said the captain, who promises nonetheless his side will not be tempering their aggressive intent any time soon. “I hate the phrase, but we are number nine in the world and we can see why”, Arthur told AFP, as quoted by cricketnext.com.
“The team management has asked to retain Hasan Ali for the T-20I against England on September 7, 2016”.
Shaharyar Khan apparently is also confused over whether to change the captain of the national one-day team ahead of the series against the West Indies in the UAE or not.
Pakistan captain Azhar Ali was relieved to register a win after his team chased down England’s target to end a hard series on a positive note. He was put on standby when we selected our one-day squad, he went to the NCA and did his training.
“Every time I get an opportunity I want to try to impress, and that’s all I can do”. They were in trouble at 72 for four before a fifth-wicket stand of 103 between Ben Stokes (69) and Jonny Bairstow (61) got their innings back on track.
The last match of the series will be at Cardiff on Sunday.
Pakistan gave themselves a platform to push on having moved to 110 for two in the 23rd over, but they never managed to gain the upper hand as England kept a tight control on their innings.
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He said: “It’s a very happy camp right now – because it has been a very tough tour for us in ODIs, and getting a victory at the end and finishing on a high is really good”. “We haven’t been able to get quick starts and clear the ropes”. Earlier this season he played the whole one-day series against Sri Lanka – albeit batting just three times – because Ben Stokes was unavailable and a year ago played three times against Australia when Buttler was given a break.
