What a difference a few days makes. It was suggested that Kevin Pietersen had the last two matches of this series to save his one-day international career and less than week later he has back-to-back hundreds to his name - the second a career-best 130 - a spring in his step and a strut at the crease as he guided England to a whitewash against Pakistan with four balls to spare.
Pietersen became the second England batsman in the series, following captain Alastair Cook, to hit consecutive hundreds and it was the second time Pietersen had achieved the feat, following the South Africa series in 2004-05 at the start of his career. It's long been a criticism of England's one-day game that there aren't enough individual three-figure innings so it will provide huge satisfaction for Andy Flower and Graham Gooch, shortly to become the full-time batting coach.
The series, too, is a huge feather in the caps of Flower and Cook. The 4-0 scoreline is England's first whitewash against anyone other than Bangladesh or Zimbabwe since they beat Australia before the 1997 Ashes. That was one of many false dawns for England's one-day side and there needs to be more evidence to find out how this unit develops, but having lost 5-0 in India last October this has been the ideal response.
This was a better display from Pietersen than his hundred on Saturday and it was also his longest ODI innings. Early on his lost regular partners - Cook fell second ball of the innings - and the pitch, used for the second time in three days, was worn and a touch slower. Pakistan packed their side with five spinners and just one quick but only Saeed Ajmal, who removed Eoin Morgan and the debutant Jos Buttler in the space of three balls to leave England wobbling on 68 for 4, posed a significant threat.
Pietersen's main moment of concern came when he was saved by the DRS on 80 after getting into a horrid tangle trying to scoop Abdur Rehman over his shoulder. He was given out lbw by umpire Zameer Haider but replays showed he'd been struck outside off stump. Last week Pietersen spoke about DRS being his biggest challenge; here it was his biggest saviour. The review system made an important intervention when Samit Patel, on 5 and with England needing 44 off 40 balls, was given lbw by Haider but had also been struck outside the line. It wasn't a great evening for the umpires with Cook earlier given not out before Pakistan reviewed.
The scoring rate had seized up as Azhar approached his maiden ODI fifty and Shoaib Malik struggled to time the ball. The sense with Azhar, albeit in the very early stages of his career, is that he doesn't have a range of gears to move through in the one-day game. Malik does not have the excuse of inexperience to fall back on and his return to Pakistan colours has not been a happy one in this series. Having used up 33 deliveries for 23 he missed a sweep against Briggs in the spinner's last over. When a team can win without three of their main bowlers it bodes well for the future.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
0 comments:
Cricket We Love You