Adil Rashid: ‘It was more about…’: England’s spinner Adil Rashid opens up on his ‘Man of the Match’ performance against Pakistan | Cricket News | Parami News

In the fourth T20I against Pakistan, Adil Rashid from England bowled excellently and was awarded as the player of the match.

At London on Thursday night, England’s impressive 7-wicket victory over Pakistan in the final T20I was due to a splendid bowling spell by Mark Wood, fiery openers Phil Salt, an Jos Buttler. This win also helped them to claim the 2-match series by 2-0.

The other two matches were abandoned due to rain with only second and fourth T20Is being played. As he mentioned in his presentation after the match, Rashid’s strategy and variation of pace came into play in this particular win.

“I think it’s more about assessing conditions. Trying to be smart about changing pace. We had that experience because we went straight from playing in India (in IPL) to playing a World Cup. I hope you can see us do that again! Certain things I try to work on and improve myself. It’s just coming together for me at different times. Hopefully, we get another trophy,” said Rashid.

England elected to field first in this game and English bowlers faced a difficult task when they dealt with Babar Azam and Mohammed Rizwan their openers who demonstrated great batting techniques through hard hitting but lost their wickets. However, spinners Rashid (2/27) and Moeen Ali (1/23) put pressure on Pakistan batters restricting them up to 86/5.

Usman Khan and Iftikhar Ahmed’s little resurgence ensured a total of 157 all out out of 19.5 overs for Pakistan. Alongside Rashid and Moeen, Mark Wood (2/35) as well as Liam Livingstone (2/17) had significant inputs with ball too.

While chasing down a target of 158 runs set by Pakistan in their innings, England’s opening batsmen, Phil Salt (45 off 24 balls) and captain Jos Buttler (39 off 24 balls), launched a rapid assault during the powerplay to score a cumulative of 78 runs. Although England had to wait for some time after Haris Rauf made some early breakthroughs in the innings before Jonny Bairstow (28* off 16 deliveries) and Harry Brook (17* off 14 deliveries) closed English innings at 15.3 overs hence winning by seven wickets.

Due to rain, the first and third T20Is were called off hence with this win, England won the four-match series 2-0. Player of the game Rashid took three wickets while giving away only twenty-seven runs; which is why he was awarded “Player of the Match” trophy, further cementing his importance to his national team ahead of the T20 World Cup in India in 2024.