England 169-5, 8 balls left.

180-5, 3 balls left.

182-5, 2 balls to go.

185-5, innings over.

Pakistan need 186 to win off 120 balls.

England win by 48 runs.
Great response by england after the dutch farce lets hope they can take this form forward now.

Excellent response from England. Very good win and nice to see Rashid bowl well too.

he did well, wright took MOM, well deserved.

England played well but jeez Pakistan were poor.

They didn't look bothered or interested for the most part.

Am I right in saying that with our average it is "impossible" for us to go out now?

Pakistan have got to thrash Holland to go through and if Holland do win Pakstan go out.

Whats ironic is that by Losing to the Netherlands, England have significantly increased their chace of knocking out one of the biggest potential rivals

Aussies out.

Good times

Always good to see the Aussies beaten but this could be a double edged weapon for the upcoming ashes series.
They have an extra two weeks to prepare and will be even more determined not to suffer the ignominy of an Ashes defeat.
They rarely suffer consecutive bad results as the recent winter series in SA showed. Beaten at home, victorious away.

I was just thinking the same thing!!
What better way to get over an embarassing world cup than to destroy the pommies om their own patch


I hope we have a fully fit and firing squad because we are gonna need it!!

Being honest with ourselves though, were you really confident of winning the ashes anyway?

I don't buy into all this about the Aussies are in a transitional stage. They've still got plenty of match winners in their squad and i'm not convinced we're consistent enough to win it.

I hope i'm wrong, obviously!

No not overly confident and i agree that the "aussies in transitional stage" is being over-played but i do think with everyone fit we have a chance.
I know they have depth in their squad but they've lost a hell of a lot of quality over the last couple of years and i think if we don't respect them too much we have a chance.

It was only the other day Ponting was laughing at us for losing to the Netherlands.
To be fair to the Aussies... why were Ireland and Bangledesh in the same group while Australia, Sri Lanka and West Indies were all in the same group?

Alot of their big names are gone though - Hayden, Gilchrist, McGrath, Gillespie. Although if you look at our team, virtually the same has happened.

Will be THE force of T20 within the next few years

Definately agreed. But they've replaced with quality. And more importantly, pretty much unknown quality to England. You knew what you were going to get with the player's you mentioned....a nice solid opening, agressive attack etc. But with the new guys there is that sense of unpredictability.

I disagree we've played a lot without trescothick,giles was done,vaughan's form was poor for 2 yrs before he left.
They've lost a lot more experience,quality and big game players than we have and with everyone fit i think we have a chance.
For the 1st test i'd like to see us line up like this....
Strauss
Cook
Bopara
Pieterson
Collingwood
Flintoff
Prior
Swann
Broad
Anderson
Onions/sidebottom

I agree that the talent is there but to me it just doesn't fit together as well. That bowling line-up doesn't look as threatening as Harmison, Hoggard, Si Jones, Giles and Flintoff did (when they were on form of course). Keepers an issue for me as well. We always seem to be chopping and changing but if you look at all the other good teams they had/have one keeper for all forms of the game.

Prior seems to be settling down now though.
Anderson and broad are ready for the next step imo and i like how onions played albeit against a poor windies side.
I think if we have flintoff fit to lead our bowling attack the rest will gain confidence from this and do the buisness.

- Strauss
- Cook
- Bopara
- Pieterson
- Collingwood
- Flintoff
- Prior
- Swann
- Broad
- Anderson
- Sidebottom

IMO i think he should of played in the 20Twenty World Cup ,, Foster is a good keeper but Prior can hit the ball and when on his game can get a few handy runs

Sri Lanka looked pretty impressive. Mendes bowling was awesome. I do think some of them have very strange bowling actions though - I know Mulilitharan (sp apols) action was cleared but it still looks like he chucks it to me and Mandal's action definitely looks like a throw (looks like he's trying to skim a pebble on the sea). Poor old Jeff Cope must be seething.

The lads did us proud tonight.