Stuart Broad is confident England have the right middle-order manpower to beat most teams in Twenty20 cricket despite suffering an eight-run defeat against Pakistan on Thursday. Umar Gul (three for 18) turned the first Twenty20 on its head as, with England seemingly coasting to victory, he first bowled Ravi Bopara round his legs with a searing yorker and then took two more wickets in successive balls in his next over to take the game away from the tourists.
“Umar Gul is one of the best Twenty20 bowlers in the world, and he showed his class,” Broad said. “We probably didn’t play him as well as we could have done. But it’s such a fine line in Twenty20 cricket.”
England needed only seven an over, with seven wickets in hand, before Bopara was out. “You never think Twenty20 cricket is in the bag,” Broad added. “It can change in one over – and the way Umar Gul got the ball reverse-swinging and bowled his yorkers, he bowled brilliantly. “You have to give credit to the way they finished their bowling. “But we probably have to look at how we’re going to score in those last five overs. We certainly have the guys in our team that can do that.
“You saw Jonny Bairstow at Cardiff [against India last September] smash it all around, and Jos Buttler’s record is absolutely fantastic.” England needed only seven an over, with seven wickets in hand, before Bopara was out.
Buttler, yet to transfer his outstanding domestic form to England colours, fell to his trademark shot – when his attempt to beat short fine-leg did not work.
“Jos is renowned for his little flick,” Broad said. “But it just turned out it was a slightly slower ball, and it didn’t clear (Saeed) Ajmal by a foot. “We needed someone to bat all the way through. You could tell that from the way Misbah (-ul-Haq) and (Shoaib) Malik batted, took a bit of time out of the game, got themselves in and then picked up a couple of boundaries towards the end.
“But it’s not something to get too down about, because we could have won that game almost down to the last over – and it’s important we keep positive about it.”
