Hello world!
After three Tests and two T20s, one rained out, Pakistan go into the last match of their tour in search of a first win, while Babar Azam – officially the world’s top-ranked T20 batsman, mind you – comes to terms with being described as “a lost cow” by Shoaib Akhtar in the wake of the record-bending defeat to England on Sunday. “He is out there, not knowing what to do,” blasted Akhtar of his compatriot’s captaincy in that game, which may well fire up the 25-year-old, unless of course he’s ignored it completely as the wild flailings of an ex-player desperate to drive traffic to his YouTube channel.
England meanwhile have the first game of a new series against Australia to look forward to on Friday and will look to go into it without a hangover either literal (it’s Dawid Malan’s 33rd birthday on Thursday, after all) or metaphorical. The birthday boy, who averages 54.60 across his 12 international ODI innings so far, is one of the players hoping to cement his place in the team with a big knock tonight.
There is a 2% chance of precipitation in Manchester this evening, while anything even tiptoeing towards the neighbourhood of vaguely approaching Sunday’s wild pyrotechnics (394 runs in 39.1 overs at 1.68 runs a ball) will do very nicely, thankyou.
Anyway, and most importantly, hello everybody, and welcome!