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Over confidence always kills - and this is very true inc case of Pakistan. When Pakistan team whitewashed the test matches series against England, everyone seemed jubilant of defeating the World Number 1 - for some Pakistan looked over confident to repeat the same performance in the four matches ODIs series.
And the very first ODI came as a stunning reality. While Pakistani spin bowlers bowled superbly, specially Saeed Ajmal (5) and Shahid Afridi (2) and contained the England squad at a reachable 260 target, the Pakistani batsmen miserably failed. Top four batsmen were sent back to pavilion just in the first five overs of Steve Finn.
ODIs and Test matches are altogether a different ballgame, and Pakistani batsmen do not seem to have the practice and approach to handle ODI professionally. While bowlers may perform as before, it is the batsmen who have to come forward to make runs and win. Unless Misbah, who himself could not deliver, has an offensive strategy in the second ODI on 15 February at Abu Dhabi, he may get ready for another setback.
England seems to have overcome the shock of the test-matches defeat and have learnt their lesson well. They will try to undo Pakistan's spinner attacks and score a hefty target and then unleash a counter spin-crusade to contain Pakistani batsmen as they did in the first ODI.
The likely opposing squads for the second ODI are as under:
England:
AN Cook, JM Anderson, JM Bairstow, RS Bopara, TT Bresnan, DR Briggs, SCJ Broad, JC Buttler, JW Dernbach, ST Finn, C Kieswetter, EJG Morgan, SR Patel, KP Pietersen, GP Swann, IJL Trott
Pakistan:
Misbah-ul-Haq, Abdur Rehman, Adnan Akmal, Aizaz Cheema, Asad Shafiq, Azhar Ali, Hammad Azam, Imran Farhat, Junaid Khan, Mohammad Hafeez, Saeed Ajmal, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Malik, Umar Akmal, Umar Gul, Wahab Riaz, Younis Khan
Let us watch the second ODI between England and Pakistan, live from Sheikh Zayed stadium, Abu Dhabi at 11:00 GMT on 15 Feb, and see whether Pakistan strikes back or not.
The links for the free live streaming are given herein under:
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