Today, England is facing Pakistan in their first ODI match in Sophia Gardens, Cardiff. A few days back, seven members of the England team were tested positive to COVID-19, three players and four team management members, and the rest of the team are in isolation. So, ECB appointed Ben Stokes to lead the side. The team consist of several players from the County Championship.
England playing for the first ODI: Philip Salt, Dawid Malan, Zak Crawley, James Vince, Ben Stokes (c), John Simpson (wk), Lewis Gregory, Craig Overton, Brydon Carse, Saqib Mahmood, Mathew Parkinson. On the other side, Pakistan playing 11: Imam-ul-Haq, Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam (c), Mohammad Rizwan (wk), Saud Shakeel, Sohaib Maqsood, Shadab Khan, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Afridi, Haris Rauf.
England had won the toss and elected to field first. In the first over of the match, Saqib Mahmood takes two wickets. In the first ball of his over and innings, he dismissed Imam-ul-Haq for the duck. After Imam-ul-Haq, on the third ball, he dismissed Pakistan skipper Babar Azam for zero. After breaking the opening pair in the first over, he comes to attack the sixth over, again takes a wicket of Saud Shakeel.
Pakistan is currently standing with 51 runs with the loss of four wickets at 11 overs. With an impressive early breakthrough, England is looking strong to stop Pakistan from giving a huge total on board. Fakhar Zaman with 30 runs and Sohaib Maqsood with three runs are in the crease currently. Let’s see further, how much total does Pakistan put on board.