Captain Cook shines as England bounce back to thrash Pakistan

Alistair Cook scored a magnificent 137 that helped England to their first win over Pakistan this year. Ravi Bopara and Steven Finn also performed as Pakistan were brushed aside in Abu Dhabi. 

England entered the One Day series looking to make up for the embarrassing 3-0 white-wash by Pakistan in the test series, with a young looking squad.

With the likes of Andrew Strauss, Ian Bell, Matt Prior and Monty Panesar returning home after the test series, there were question marks over who would come in to the one day side, with youngsters Jos Butler, Jonathan Birstow and Jade Dernbach all pushing for places. However, one day skipper Cook pipped for Ravi Bopara and Craig Kieswetter to replace the out going batsmen and Steven Finn added to the bowling ranks. Spinner Samit Patel also retained his spot in the ODI line up as the second spinner.

Cook won the toss and elected to bat first, which seems to be the common thing these days in day-night matches, with batting becoming harder under lights. Kevin Pietersen was chosen to open ahead of the regular one day opener, Kieswetter and both he and Cook got England off to a solid start.
With the score on 57 after 12 overs, the ever reliable Shahid Afridi made the breakthrough for Pakistan, with a ripping leg-spinner that bamboozled Pietersen and clipped his off stump. This brought England's 'Mr Dependable' Jonathan Trott to the crease, but Afridi produced a wonderful googly to bowl Trott through the gate, leaving England now fretting on 57-2.

It looked like the same old story for England against spin on this tour as Ravi Bopara joined Cook in the middle as England desperately needed a big partnership. Cook and Bopara batted patiently, yet aggressively to rebuild England's innings that looked in trouble after Afridi's double strike. The Essex pair put on a superb 131 run partnership before Bopara was stumped off the bowling of Saeed Ajmal for 50, with the score on 188.

Wickets then started to tumble as England looked on course to making a score in excess of 300. Morgan and Kieswetter both fell cheaply leaving Cook, who is not known for his big hitting, to try and score the runs. The captain brought up his 3rd ODI hundred in style with a trademark back-foot cut for four. Cook then fell for 137 off the bowling of Ajmal, as he looked to accelerate, but what a performance he had produced to put his team in a position to post a competitive total. Stuart Broad failed with the bat as he chipped one straight back at Ajmal, but Samit Patel and Graeme Swann helped England to 260-7 off their 50 overs. Indecently, the ever impressive Ajmal picked up figures of 5-43, with all 5 of his wickets coming in his last 4 overs. 

As Pakistan did with their spin attack during England's innings, the tourists kept to their strengths and looked to force a win with their highly talented pace attack. Steven Finn immediately ripped through the Pakistan top order with 4 wickets in his opening spell leaving them reeling on 40-4.

Enter the England spin attack of Swann and Patel, who with their controlled but attacking style of spin bowling, managed to not only restrict the runs but to also take wickets at regular intervals. The only real resistance from Pakistan came with Umar Akmal and Shahid Afridi at the crease, however Swann accounted for Akmal whilst Patel dismissed Afridi, dispite dropping him off Swann's bowling previously. Patel ended with figues of 3-26 and Swann 2-19 leaving Stuart Broad to rap up the innings as Ajmal lofted his shot to Cook at mid-off to complete a 130 run victory for England, and their first competitive win since defeating India in the final test at the Oval last summer.