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Match Facts

Monday, February 27, Abu Dhabi
Start time 2000 (1600 GMT)Hammad Azam played a brief but sparkling innings in the second Twenty20•Getty Images

The Big Picture

After two whitewashes we now have a series decider following England’s slick victory in the second Twenty20 international in Dubai. Twenty20 matches can swing on the smallest of factors, but the intensity and sharpness of England’s display on Saturday suggests they are the side finishing stronger.A series victory will help consolidate England’s position at the top of the rankings, although the bigger picture, and it applies to both teams, is putting in place plans for the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka during September and October. Twenty20 internationals are few and far between – three-match series are a new breed in this format – so each game is important towards building a unit.England learned quickly between the first and second matches in Dubai while Pakistan regressed quite significantly, especially with the bat. Jonny Bairstow showed that England’s young players are soaking up their experiences while the incisiveness of the bowling attack is now consistent across all three formats.

Form guide

(Most recent first)
Pakistan LWWWW
England WLWLW

Watch out for…

Hammad Azam showed some spark in the second Twenty20 and while he was cutting loose, in a manner reminiscent of Abdul Razzaq, Pakistan were not out of the match. For a 20-year-old playing his first Twenty20 international innings it was a display of impressive confidence. It might be worth Misbah-ul-Haq giving him a bowl.Graeme Swann was out-bowled in the Test series by Monty Panesar and often overshadowed by the quicks in the 50-over matches, but he has come into his own in the Twenty20s. His eight overs have brought figures of 5 for 30, which should provide him a nice rankings boost at the end of the series. And he still likes cracking the jokes.

Team news

The form of Shoaib Malik is causing Pakistan problems, which became even more acute when Misbah struggled to score in the second match. The middle order could do with some more kick and it may be worth promoting Azam. Imran Farhat is also in the squad if they decide Awais Zia has proved just hit and miss.Pakistan (probable) 1 Mohammad Hafeez, 2 Awais Zia, 3 Asad Shafiq, 4 Umar Akmal (wk), 5 Misbah-ul-Haq (capt), 6 Shoaib Malik, 7 Shahid Afridi, 8 Hammad Azam, 9 Umar Gul, 10 Saeed Ajmal, 11 Aizaz CheemaWith the series on the line England won’t be tinkering as they did in the last ODI, which means Tim Bresnan is unlikely to find a place.England (probable) 1 Kevin Pietersen, 2 Craig Kieswetter (wk), 3 Ravi Bopara, 4 Eoin Morgan, 5 Jonny Bairstow, 6 Jos Buttler, 7 Samit Patel, 8 Stuart Broad (capt), 9 Graeme Swann, 10 Jade Dernbach, 11 Steven Finn

Pitch and conditions

In Dubai a score of around 140-150 proved defendable and the nature of the pitch at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi during the ODIs suggests something similar could be par for this final match. It will be another late finish for fans and players with an 8pm start.

Stats and trivia

• Pakistan’s defeat on Saturday was Misbah’s first as captain in a Twenty20
• In 16 innings on tour (including the warm-up matches) Eoin Morgan has made 190 runs with a top score of 31.

Quotes

“In this game we won last night, I thought Bairstow’s innings was outstanding – very skilful, and very powerful as well. That’s a very good combination to have.”
Edited by Dustin Silgardo

George Bailey has conceded he will only win respect as Australia’s new Twenty20 captain if he scores runs himself, regardless of how the side performs. Bailey’s highest score in the shortest format is 60 and he has made only one T20 half-century in the past three seasons, but he said batting at No.5 opportunities were often limited and his record “stands up against anyone”.Bailey will make his T20 international debut on Wednesday against India in Sydney, and he will do it as captain after Australia’s selectors axed Cameron White from the T20 leadership. A successful state captain with Tasmania, Bailey, 29, is seen by John Inverarity’s panel as the man who has the best chance of steering Australia to success in the ICC World Twenty20 in September.However, he will need to ensure he doesn’t succumb to the same fate as Michael Clarke, who was viewed as a tactically shrewd T20 captain but whose own batting skills were not suited to the game. Bailey is a more powerful striker than Clarke and has a T20 strike-rate of 132, but it remains to be seen whether he can turn himself from a good domestic batsman into an international one.”You are captain but first and foremost you’re in there to perform,” Bailey told ESPNcricinfo. “That dictates a hell of a lot of the respect that you have. Part of my performance will be my captaincy but the majority of it will be with the bat. I have to perform. I certainly would have liked a few more runs in the Big Bash but since Twenty20 started being played I certainly think my record stands up against anyone, particularly for someone who has batted for the majority in that middle order.”Bailey scored 114 runs at an average of 19 for the Melbourne Stars in the Big Bash League, where he was captained by White, the man he has succeeded as national skipper. But as a man who often bats in the lower middle order, Bailey believes his average is less relevant than it would be in one-day or first-class cricket, because his opportunities are fewer.He is part of a squad that Australia’s selectors hope can form the core of the side that will challenge for the World T20 title in Sri Lanka later this year, and Inverarity has spoken of the importance of building a group that works well together. Bailey echoed those thoughts and said it was vital the squad was well-balanced.”I think there are a lot of facets of Twenty20 cricket that we’re still working out how we measure whether someone has been successful,” Bailey said. “Part of naming a squad and starting to work out who’s going to fit into the jigsaw puzzle of September is exactly that, what will be a group that harmonises well together.”You could pick the top six or seven run scorers from the Big Bash and the top five leading wicket takers, but in terms of getting a team together it’s about melding all those skills of being able to score quickly and being able to score consistently, keeping runs down and taking wickets and putting all of those things together into a team.”We’re getting closer and closer and we have more data on T20 cricket but certainly batting in the middle order it’s always going to be a challenge, compared to a Test cricketer where you get to the end of your career and you say well you averaged this and it gives you some indication. I think in T20 you look at whether people are contributing in partnerships, or what stage they come in, or when they hit their boundaries and their sixes, to be an effective cricketer.”Some Australian fans might judge whether Bailey is an effective cricket based on his first two T20 outings this week, if they have not already seen him play. While the pressure of performing as the national captain cannot completely be avoided, Bailey is confident that he shut out any such distractions against India on Wednesday and Friday.”It’s not something I’ll be feeling in the group,” he said. “Cricketers are aware that we play in a performance-based game and the pressure sometimes of what other people are thinking, that’s often built up in the media. Once you’re out there performing, you’re just out there doing your job to the best of your ability.”

Graeme Swann, the England offspinner, has said there are no lingering doubts about his fitness for the first Test against Pakistan in Dubai on Tuesday. As if to prove it, he followed up his statement by diving from a racing yacht into the warm waters of the Persian Gulf.Swann needed a scan on a sore thigh before playing in England’s 100-run victory against a Pakistan Cricket Board XI. He described himself as “100% fit” as he joined team-mate Alastair Cook for a quick flight to Abu Dhabi and a ceremonial plunge off the racing yacht Azzam, Abu Dhabi’s official contender in the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12.Swann, 32, admitted he had briefly felt his age as injury threatened to disrupt a tour that gives him the opportunity to reassert himself as one of the world’s leading spin bowlers. “I was a bit nervous going into the last warm-up game because my thigh felt like a 32-year-old’s rather than a 22-year-old’s,” he said. “But it managed to get through and I felt great by the end of the game. So touch wood I’ll be 100% fit for the first Test.”If there had been any injury doubts, Swann’s jaunt to Abu Dhabi would not have been countenanced. The players donned heavy-weather, waterproof safety gear to join a short-sprint course that officially started the third leg of the race from Abu Dhabi to Sanya, China.Swann was left to marvel at the camaraderie on the yacht, skippered by Britain’s double-Olympic medallist Ian Walker, a useful reminder shortly before the start of what England expect to be a gruelling Test series against Pakistan.”Ian told us that Azzam translated as determination in Arabic,” Swann said. “That seems a perfectly apt name having seen the unbelievable camaraderie and teamwork the crew put in during our short stint on board.”Swann became the first England spinner to take 50 Test wickets in a calendar year in 2009, as he made a spectacular entry into international cricket. His success has been more hard-won over the past year as he has needed all his know-how to survive a series of unsympathetic pitches, but he has high hopes of greater assistance in the UAE.He has already bowled 70 overs in the two warm-up games and can expect his workload to remain heavy, with three Tests, four ODIs and three Twenty20 internationals to follow. He was overshadowed by Monty Panesar against the PCB XI, taking only two wickets in comparison to Panesar’s match-return of 8 for 103.Swann told the he would prefer to have Panesar alongside him in the opening Test. “I like the rhythm of spinners at each end and I’d go with two in this part of the world. He has shown he can be a matchwinner when he’s back to his best. I spin the ball in, he spins it away and a partnership like that can be formidable.”The decision to use the same pitch for England’s first two matches gave both spinners encouragement. “The ball does spin, especially on a six-day old pitch,” Swann said. “I should be getting a lot of work out here. It’s obviously hot, and the seamers can’t do the job they do in England because it’s just not the same conditions.”

Andrew Strauss has insisted he has no qualms over the squad Pakistan have selected for the Tests in UAE despite links to the spot-fixing trial which led to Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Salman Butt being handed jail sentences.Three further players whose names were mentioned during the trial at Southwark Crown Court – left-arm quick Wahab Riaz, opening batsman Imran Farhat and middle-order player Umar Akmal – are part of Pakistan’s 16-man squad for the three Tests in Dubai and Abu Dhabi which start on January 17. No charges were brought against any of those players.Strauss has previously spoken about needing to move on from the controversy which began at Lord’s in 2010, when the now defunct exposed the spot-fixing scam involving deliberate no-balls, and he again talked about a fresh start as the England squad prepared to fly out from Heathrow.”It’s their obligation and duty to pick the best side they think is available to them,” Strauss said. “I think the spot-fixing stuff is something we are desperately keen to move on from. I don’t think there’s any good that can come from churning it all up again and it’s time to just concentrate on the cricket. We will play whichever XI is selected.”Even before spot-fixing the history of contests between these two teams was littered with controversy including the abandoned Test at The Oval in 2006 and the infamous altercation between Mike Gatting and umpire Shakoor Rana in 1987. Strauss, though, is very keen to ensure that the next couple of months don’t add another reason to remember the occasion for the wrong reasons.”This perception that there are always issues between Pakistan and England, we should see this as an opportunity to eradicate that,” he said. “There’s no reason why that should be the case. If we approach it in the right spirit then that should be good for relations between the two teams and world cricket in general.”Pakistan are playing a lot of good cricket and that’s going to be the challenge for us to overcome them, on the field. What’s happened before is water under the bridge and I hope both sides can play in the right spirit and produce an entertaining and exciting Test match series.”Pakistan’s recent form has included Test victories against Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh and while that trio doesn’t represent the toughest challenge in the game it is the consistency of a notoriously unpredictable team that caught the eye in the second half of 2011.They have compensated for the absence of Amir and Asif with the emergence of Junaid Khan, a left-arm quick who faces a fitness Test to see whether he’ll be available to play against England, while Aizaz Cheema was a releative late-comer to international cricket at the age of 31. Throw in the skills of Saeed Ajmal, currently the world’s leading spinner, and they remain a potent attack.”They are probably one of the form teams in world cricket at the moment. I think their bowling attack has been pretty impressive,” Strauss said.” They seem to have a production line of good quality bowlers and Saeed Ajmal in particular has done well in those conditions. They have got a good balance to their side and they are playing some good, sort of smart cricket at the moment.”There is also the advantage of having played a considerable amount of cricket in UAE which is now their home away from home, although Strauss wasn’t too concerned about the unknown quantity of what England will encounter.”The conditions aren’t tremendously foreign they are sub-continental definitely,” he said. “I suppose it’s fairly attritional cricket and that’s what you need to get used to doing in those sort of conditions. Taking 20 wickets is going to be the key and I’m very thankful that we go out there with a well-balanced bowling attack that has challenged teams continuously over the last couple of years. I’m sure they will continue to do that.”Strauss said that England are likely to select three of the five quick bowlers in the tour party when the Test series begins which, coupled with the likelihood of them retaining six specialist batsmen and Matt Prior at No. 7, means Monty Panesar will need to wait a bit longer to resume his Test career.England’s two warm-up matches, the first against an Associates and Affiliates XI starting on Saturday, will give Chris Tremlett and Steven Finn a chance to push their claims for a recall but they face a tough task to break up the attack that completed the 4-0 whitewash against India. For whichever bowlers do play, it will be a tough few weeks.

Group B

Sanjay Bangar hit an unbeaten 77•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

Ashok Dinda’s aggressive fast bowling fetched him his maiden ten-wicket haul in a first-class match and set up a thrilling final day on which fourteen wickets fell at the Bansi Lal Cricket Stadium in Rohtak. Haryana succumbed to the accuracy and pace of Dinda to be bowled out for 169 in their second innings, setting Bengal a target of 189 from 37 overs. The visitors made a good first of the chase, but bad light stopped play 30 minutes before the scheduled end of play, at which point Bengal were 128 for 5, needing 61 runs from 54 balls. Haryana had begun the day on 42 for 1, 61 ahead of Bengal, with a draw looming. But Dinda ran through the line-up to finish with career-best figures of 7 for 44, giving him 12 for 142 for the match, also a career best. Though Bengal lost opener Arindam Das early on, the second-wicket pair of Rohan Banerjee and Abhishk Jhunjunwalla injected the required urgency into the chase with a 55-run stand before Sourav Ganguly cracked a brisk 22-ball 21 that included the only six of the innings to set up what looked like exciting finish until the light decided to play spoilsport.Bengal have five points from three games, while Haryana are slightly better off, in fifth place with eight points from four. Bengal had missed a golden opportunity to overtake Haryana’s first-innings score on Thursday by the small margin of 19 runs when their lower order folded in feeble fashion. Dinda summed up the hurt in the dressing room: “I am happy with my effort but I can’t forget that we fell short,”In Delhi, the fast bowling pair of Parvinder Awana and Ashish Nehra rattled Baroda with speed and movement at the Feroz Shah Kotla, sharing the final six wickets, to help the hosts to a ten-wicket victory. Baroda resumed on 81 for 4, still trailing Delhi’s first-innings score by 16. On the final day, Nehra picked up three quick wickets: the engine room of Baroda’s batting in Rakesh Solanki, Pinal Shah and Ambati Rayudu, who played with a swollen thumb. Awana, who had taken two wickets on Thursday , then polished off the lower order and the tail to pick his fourth five-for of his career. Baroda had been shot out inside 20 overs on the final morning and a target of 48 runs was knocked by the Delhi openers easily. The six points (including the bonus) helped Delhi register their first outright win of the season and jump atop Group B.Awana later told the that during the IPL, Shaun Pollock, the Mumbai Indians’ consultant, had told him not to give up on bowling fast and to “develop” his fast bowling muscles. He also thanked Nehra, who finished with nine wickets, for inspiring hims. “Ashish bowling with so much of effort spurred me a lot. He told me to keep bowling my heart out and the wickets will flow.”Udit Birla’s maiden first-class fifty, in his third match, helped Madhya Pradesh register a five-wicket win over Gujarat on a final day devoid of drama at the Emerald High School Ground in Indore. MP began the day needing 91 to win, with six wickets in hand on a pitch that had offered the seamers good purchase on the previous three days. The overnight pair of Abbas Ali and Harpreet Singh started confidently before Ishwar Chaudhary induced an edge from Ali. The 22-year-old Birla then took charge of the chase – MP were 70 runs away from victory when he came in, and he scored 52 of them.”It was my third match and it’s a special feeling to score [my] maiden Ranji fifty in a winning cause,” Birla told .Niraj Patel, Gujarat’s captain, did not hide his disappointment, though he praised his fast bowlers. “Our top-order did not stand up and be counted on both the occasions. However, I am really pleased with our bowling and fielding efforts.”Madhya Pradesh are tied on eight points with Baroda, Tamil Nadu and Haryana, but they have played three games to Baroda and Haryana’s four.

Group A

It took Mumbai an hour to bundle out Orissa at the DRIEMS Ground in Cuttack and secure an easy innings-and-210 runs win. Orissa began the final day on 163 for 7, and lost Basant Mohanty off the second ball of the day for 41. The dismissal gave Ramesh Powar his 23rd first-class five-for. The last two wickets put up brief resistance, with partnerships of 41 and 22, but Mumbai eventually bowled out Orissa for 226 with plenty of time to spare. Zaheer Khan, who bowled 22 overs in the entire match, picking four wickets, did not bowl at all on the final morning. The six points Mumbai take from the match put them at the top of Group A, while Orissa are still at rock bottom.Coach Sulakshan Kulkarni praised his team for not getting distracted following Ajit Agarkar’s decision to head back to Mumbai on the first day of the match because he was not included in the playing eleven. “We did not expect it to be so easy, for Orissa have been in the Elite division for some years now, and have scored well in excess of 400 in their last two matches,” Kulkarni said. “So their collapse came as a bit of a surprise. But then, a victory is a victory. Our bowlers bowled beautifully. Our batsmen, particularly Kaustubh Pawar and Suryakumar Yadav, set the tone of the match by posting a big total. It was total team effort.”Aakash Chopra celebrated going past 10,000 first-class runs on the third day by converting his start into a century on the fourth, to help Rajasthan earn a draw against Uttar Pradesh at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur. Rajasthan were made to follow on and started the fourth day still 127 runs behind. Chopra and Vineet Saxena took their opening stand from 91 to 166, with Chopra registering his 28th first-class century of his career. Uttar Pradesh bowlers were finding it hard to create any sort of impact on a lifeless pitch. Robin Bist, who had got a century in Mumbai, took advantage of the bowlers’ predicament, scoring exactly 100 not out as Rajasthan reached 349 for 2, enough to earn a point. Rajasthan have managed just one point from each of their four games now, while UP have taken three from each of their games.Karnataka secured three points for the first-innings lead against Saurashtra at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore. Saurashtra started the day on 179 for 5, facing Karnataka’s 503. It was a question of how long they could bat; they lasted 49 overs – not enough to deny Karnataka three points but just about enough to avoid an outright loss. S Aravind dismissed Pratik Mehta in the second over, but veteran Shitanshu Kotak and Sandip Maniar batted time to prevent a collapse. Kotak, one of the more determined dead-bat batsman in domestic cricket, was let off in the very first over of the day by Stuart Binny in the slips and then again by KB Pavan in the eighth over. He stuck on for the next two hours, virtually snatching Karnataka’s hopes of an outright victory. Aravind eventually dismissed Maniar and offspinner Sunil Raju took a wicket to finish with four in the innings.Though the hosts picked three quick wickets in Saurashtra second innings, Cheteshwar Pujara made a patient, unbeaten 52 to ensure there was no collapse.Punjab‘s lower order made handy contributions to prevent Railways from making a comeback at the Punjab Cricket Association Stadium in Mohali. The hosts had started the day 144 runs ahead but were four wickets down in their second innings. They slipped to 83 for 6 on the fourth day and needed the lower order to step up to avoid giving Railways a gettable target. Amitoze Singh scored 68, Mayank Sidhana got 49, and Manpreet Gony smashed 45 off 39 balls including two sixes. That took Punjab to 242 for 9. They declared and left Railways with 35.3 overs to bat, which they negotiated thanks to Sanjay Bangar’s unbeaten 77. Punjab took three points from the game to go to fourth in the table.

Shane Watson, the Australia opening batsmen, is likely to make a comeback for the second ODI against South Africa in Port Elizabeth on Sunday. Watson sustained a hip injury before the second Twenty20 match last week and missed out on that game in Johannesburg and the first one-day international on Wednesday. He was not seriously hurt though, and was left out of the starting XI as a precaution, for fear of aggravating the niggle ahead of the Test series.”I’m confident with how Shane trained yesterday and that he’ll be fine to go,” Michael Clarke, Australia captain said. Shaun Marsh, Australia’s other injured player, took part in a session for the first time on Saturday since picking up a shoulder injury after playing in the first T20 in Cape Town ten days ago. Clarke said team management would give the pair “as long as possible” to see whether they are fit for Sunday’s match and will only announce their starting XI at the eleventh hour.If both Watson and Marsh are deemed fit, Australia will have four men capable of opening the batting and Clarke will have some decisions to make. David Warner, who was in ominous form at the Champions League T20 for New South Wales, but has only amassed 20 runs from three innings on this tour, and Ricky Ponting, who scored 63 in the first ODI, opened the batting on Wednesday. “It’s not a bad problem to have,” Clarke said. “We will wait and see what happens with Shaun today and with Shane. We’ll see how he pulls up and we will work out what the best XI is in these conditions. We need to make sure we assess them correctly.”St George’s Park’s much slower pitch, with lower bounce, will be vastly different to the pacy wicket the two sides played on in Centurion. A westerly wind is predicted, which should bring in moisture from the sea and offer something to the bowlers and although the pitch is likely to be flat, run-scoring can be more difficult here.That will not come as good news to former South African captain Graeme Smith, who has been under fire for his lack of form. Smith managed just four runs in the last ODI, which were overthrows and has looked increasingly uncomfortable at the crease. Clarke said Australia are not taking his lean patch for granted and they expect the Smith that stood up to them in the 2008-9 series to be back soon. “There’s certainly going to be a time in this series when Graeme will make run. He is a good player and his statistics certainly show that.”Clarke also sympathised with Smith, saying his public pasting is somewhat unwarranted. “He has been a very good captain and a very good player so I don’t know why he copped so much criticism,” he said. “In regards to playing against him, I respect him.”With Australia’s two left-arm pace bowlers, Doug Bollinger and Mitchell Johnson, things are not set to get any easier for Smith, who has been hesitant against left-armers. Clarke thinks it’s not necessarily the arm the bowler uses, but the ability to swing the ball that is causing Smith problems. “Anytime the ball is swinging, whether you are right or left-handed, it’s tough batting,” he said. I think that was the case the other night, there was a bit of rain in the air and our bowlers did a very good job in good bowling conditions.”Australia’s attack is earning them high praise, with the blend of old hands and young talent proving successful. “We’ve got a couple left-handers and if the ball is swinging, they play a big part in bowling to left-handers, swinging the ball away. And, it’s no different with [Pat] Cummins or [James] Pattinson to right-handers, they take the ball away from the right-hander so it’s a good place to be with our fast bowlers at the moment.”Cummins has claimed the bulk of the spotlight, with his evident maturity at his young age constantly pointed out as exceptional. He was included in Australia’s Test squad at the expense of Pattinson, who was included in the squad for the tour of Sri Lanka. Pattinson has faded a little but Clarke is convinced that he will make an appearance again soon. “He is a young guy and he is trying to improve every time he walks into the nets,” he said. “I’m confident you will see more of him, whether it’s in this series or in the Australian summer. He has got an opportunity to perform for Victoria while we are playing the Tests. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see him playing in these one-dayers either.”The Port Elizabeth pitch may not be the place for Pattinson but the venue of the third ODI, Durban, may give him his chance. By then, Australia hope to have wrapped up the series and Clarke said even if they have, they will go for the kill and look to sweep South Africa. For now, their focus is on the second ODI and they have a reason other than a trophy to want to emerge victorious. Wicketkeeper, Brad Haddin, turns 34 on Sunday and Clarke said, “I’d love nothing more than to win the series for him to celebrate his birthday.”