England beat Pakistan by five wickets to win their second ICC Men’s T20 World Cup title.
After a month of action, England have just been crowned T20 World Cup champions, beating Pakistan by five wickets in Melbourne.
England won the toss and elected to bowl first. They looked to have just enough in restricting Pakistan to 137 for eight in their 20 overs.
Sam Curran was the pick of England’s bowlers, taking three wickets for just 12 runs in his four overs, with no boundaries taken against him.
For the 2009 champions, Shan Masood top-scored with 38 off 28 balls as captain Babar Azam chipped in with 32, also off 28 balls.
Needing 138 for victory, the dangerous opening partnership between Jos Buttler and Alex Hales was broken with Shaheen Afridi’s dismissal of Hales in the first over.
Buttler was out two wickets later, and despite a middle-order wobble, England were able to hold on to beat Pakistan by five wickets.
Ben Stokes hit the winning runs as England became the first dual white-ball champions, holding both the 50- and 20-over titles.
Striding out to the middle with England 32 for two in the fourth over, an equation of 106 needed from 99 balls may have appeared relatively straightforward.
Yet on a pitch offering nip and bounce to arguably the best seam attack of the tournament, with the bulk of the gargantuan crowd cheering for the side in green and the all-important trophy glistening on its plinth, this felt anything but.
Sam Curran and Adil Rashid had touched perfection in the first innings yet nothing was settled.
Not all of what followed was pretty. At times the white Kookaburra ball whistled past Stokes’s outside edge with alarming regularity, one review from Babar Azam showing the wonderfully zesty Naseem Shah had missed willow by a matter of atoms.
The big moment found Stokes and, the result was certainly sweet.
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