Today England and Pakistan played the first ODI cricket match of the ongoing series at ODI at Riverside Ground, Chester-le-Street. Pakistan won the toss & elected to field first.
As usual, Andrew Strauss and Steve Davies opened the batting innings for the England team. Right from the start of the innings, England showed an brilliant performance. They started well with an good run rate more than 6 runs per over. 1st wicket partnership resulted in 78 runs from just 65 deliveries. After the fall of Andrew Strauss, Steve Davies partnered with Jonathan Trott where they both again put up a very good partnership of 75 runs. Jonathan Trott and Steve Davies put up their half centuries respectively. England till the end of their batting innings played well. Everyone contributed some decent runs to the teams total. Total overs was restricted to 41 overs. England completed its 41 overs and scored a magnificent 274 runs in total with the loss of 6 wickets. Teams highest scorer was Steve Davies who scored 87 runs from just 67 deliveries which included 13 fours. Pakistan's most successful bowler was Saeed Ajmal where he took 4 important wickets but his bowling economy was not that good. On the other hand Shoaib Akhtar bowled magnificently with an economy rate of just 3.5 runs per over but could not pick up any wicket.
Pakistan needed 275 runs from 41 overs to win the first ODI match of the series. As expected Pakistan team gave an very good and aggressive start with the openers Mohammad Hafeez and Kamran Akmal. Both played well till Graeme Swann came into the bowling attack. He picked up Mohammad Hafeez wicket where he gave a straight catch to Tim Bresnan. Pakistan lost its first wicket when its total was 62 runs. This fall resulted in continuous lose of wickets where batsmen could not stay long at the crease. Pakistan started to loose wickets in regular intervals meanwhile the asking rate got raising up. After the fall of first 3 wickets, Pakistan batsmen showed some resistance and started to contribute some runs to the team, but this did not work. Pakistan somehow managed to reach 250 runs in total after completing 41 overs. England won the match by 24 runs. All England bowlers performed equally well and picked up wickets. This was an complete team effort as far as England's victory is concerned. They showed it through bat, ball and in the field as well.
England are now leading the series by 1-0. Man of the match was Steve Davies for his 87 knock and an magnificent catch of Umar Akaml who was looking very dangerous with the bat.
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