The 37-yr-previous veteran batsman, who performed 264 matches in his 15-yr-lengthy career, has scored 7240 until now together with seven tons of and forty eight fifties. But Hafeez followed up his match-winning 151 in the second innings of the third test in Sharjah with a fluent unbeaten 102 runs in 130 balls.
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Pakistan folded for 130 in reply, with a Shahid Afridi blitz of 28 off 22 balls the highest score of the batting line-up.
Shoaib Malik removed Eoin Morgan (76) and James Taylor (60) as England lost their way from 147 for 3 to 216 all out. “In the sixth over, cricket fans had a chuckle as the 7’1″ Irfan bowled to 5’6” Taylor, but the diminutive batsman survived a probing spell, including one ball that was almost hurled above his waist, but wasn’t called a no-ball.
It was untypical of Taylor when he then failed to make the most of his moment of fortune – he would have been lbw to Shoaib had the hosts used DRS – adding only two more runs before poking a low catch to midwicket off the all-rounder.
“He showed last night, despite losing his run-up a couple of times, he got the ball up and swung it and took wickets”.
Irfan’s opening partner Anwar Ali took 2-32, while Malik finished on 2-45.
Morgan blamed his batsmen for the defeat.
“We’re not here to develop and learn and go away and say “well, we didn’t win the series, but we’re learning”.
“It will be cruel to criticize the bowlers with only 220 on the board”. We probably could have done with another 30 odd runs.
Playing ODIs for 15 years, Khan was summoned for the first time since the Cricket World Cup, but chose to quit after the first of four ODIs.
“It is one of His great blessings that I, by my own will, have taken this decision to retire from ODI cricket after having retired from T20 cricket already”, Younus added.
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“During my 15-year-long association with ODI cricket, I always tried my best to play positive cricket for my team both as captain and as a player”, Khan said. Younis made the announcement hours before the start of the England-Pakistan encounter at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.
