England vs Pakistan | 1st Test at Old Trafford - Statistical Preview
Can Ben Stokes' magic work on Pakistan?
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After winning the three-match series 2-1 against Windies, it is time for a series that a lot of cricket aficionados are looking forward to - England vs Pakistan. Can the English batsmen hold onto their perch or will it be the Pakistani seamers who will reign supreme? Let us wait and watch!
Form Guide
England - W W L W W
After having a poor 2019 season in the longest format of the game, England somehow knew that they had to bounce back; they did and how! England had quite a phenomenal outing in the tour of South Africa where they emerged victorious earlier this year. Now they have just beaten West Indies in The Wisden Trophy and they have the momentum with them walking into this series against Pakistan. England have odds of 1.15 on SBOTOP and that is an indication of how good the hosts have been in recent times.
Pakistan - W W D L L
Pakistan have played only one Test match in this calendar year and that could well place them on the backfoot against an upbeat Three Lions side. If we look into the form guide, they did win their last couple of Test matches against Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, but will that be enough? It is so hard to say right now but there’s one thing you can be rest assured, Pakistan are not going to go down without a fight. SBOTOP are offering odds of 4.44 for a Pakistan victory and there is no way it is going to come easy for the visitors. They will have to sweat it out against this Three Lions team, who have played quite a lot of cricket post the hiatus of more than 100 days already.
Key Batsmen
Ben Stokes
The name of Joe Root does pop in such scenarios but we cannot help but put Ben Stokes in his place for this forthcoming series. Though Root holds a career-best average of 61.06 against Pakistan, we are still vouching for Stokes to come up with the clutch against Pakistan because of the kind of form he is in. Stokes was the highest run-scorer of the series against West Indies and he climbed up to the fourth spot in the ICC rankings. So watch out Pakistan!
Babar Azam
Name a better batsman in that current Pakistan setup, we’ll wait! We are afraid you will not be able to name anyone better than Babar Azam at this moment and we are quite happy about it. What a phenomenal player he has been across all the formats of the gentleman’s game! As of now, he has played just one Test against England and he scored 68 unbeaten runs in that game. There will be a lot of expectations on his shoulder and it remains to be seen how he plays in this series.
Key Bowlers
Stuart Broad
England’s second-highest wicket-taker in Test cricket Stuart Broad touched the magical milestone of 500 scalps in the final Test against West Indies. In two matches, Broad picked up 16 wickets at a jaw-dropping average of 10.93 including one five-wicket and one 10-wicket haul. You really don’t want to drop this man out of your squad, would you?
Mohammad Abbas
This is a surprise pick for us as well but Mohammad Abbas has plenty of potential to make the red ball do the talking in English conditions. He has played two matches against England and has 10 wickets to his name at an impressive average of 14.20. Don’t forget, he played both those Test matches on English soil!
Venue Statistics
The Emirates Old Trafford can be considered as a fortress for the Three Lions as in the last 14 Test matches, England have only lost one match and that was against Australia, during The Ashes 2019. England even won the last Test against West Indies by a massive margin of 269 runs in the recently concluded series.
SBOTOP Predictions
SBOTOP will be counting on Ben Stokes to score a half-century at least in one of the innings and pick a couple of wickets! There is no way one can keep him out of the game and Stokes loves that pressure on him - to be honest, he thrives on that!
Squads
England: Joe Root (C), James Anderson, Jofra Archer, Dominic Bess, Stuart Broad, Rory Burns, Jos Buttler (wk), Zak Crawley, Sam Curran, Ollie Pope, Dom Sibley, Ben Stokes, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood.
Pakistan: Azhar Ali (C), Babar Azam (vice-captain), Abid Ali, Asad Shafiq, Faheem Ashraf, Fawad Alam, Imam ul Haq, Imran Khan(Sr), Kashif Bhatti, Mohammad Abbas, Mohammad Rizwan, Naseem Shah, Sarfaraz Ahmed, Shadab Khan, Shaheen Shah Afridi, Shan Masood, Sohail Khan, Usman Shinwari, Wahab Riaz and Yasir Shah.
Venue: Emirates, Old Trafford.
When to Watch: Aug 5 - 3:30 PM IST
Where to Watch: Sony Six, Sony Liv and Jio TV
