Pakistan efficiently neutralized the specter of Jos Buttler and Alex Hales as each batters went again to the pavilion with out doing extreme harm. Hales was bowled by Shaheen Afridi for 1 run whereas Buttler went again within the final over contained in the powerplay for fiery 26 runs off 17 balls.

Philip Salt, taking part in instead of the injured Dawid Malan couldn’t make a lot distinction to the scoreboard earlier than being picked up by Haris Rauf for 10 runs.

Earlier, England left-arm pacer Sam Curran and leg-spinner Adil Rashid put relentless strain on the Pakistan batting line-up to limit the opposition to a below-par 137 for eight.

Curran, who made comeback from an damage earlier this 12 months, has been England’s ‘go to’ bowler within the competitors and he proved that on the massive stage with good figures of 4-0-12-3.

The wily Rashid (4-1-22-2) wasn’t going to be left far behind as he choked the run-flow within the center overs with as many as 25 dot balls between him and Curran.

Rashid, together with his stupendous effort, again and again confirmed how the Indian crew administration bungled its script by letting Yuzvendra Chahal cool his heels all through the match.

The MCG observe had sufficient bounce and tempo however Buttler’s finest performing bowling duo (Curran and Rashid) did precisely the other – take the tempo off their deliveries.

Babar Azam (32), Mohammad Rizwan (15), Shan Masood (38) and Shadab Khan (20) had been the one ones who reached double figures however they couldn’t capitalise on the begins.