1st T20I: England vs Pakistan at Dubai

shot for four

Early wicket for Topley. Two Hampshire players in the same England team, it has been a while since that has happened.

Two wickets for Plunkett, who is working up a good head of steam. Pakistan 25/3.

Parry with a fantastic change of pace, does Rizwan in the flight and knocks his stumps over. A very positive start for England, Pakistan 42/4. Here comes Umar Akmal.

Pakistan's running between the wicket is hilariously poor. I don't think I have ever a seen a side so poor. Every single match there is seemingly chaos between the runners and at least one run out. This time Akmal and Maqsood end up at the same end leading to the simplest of run outs. 74/5 (11.2 ov).

And Afridi goes second ball for a duck. That won't help matters. 74/6 (11.4 ov).

Brilliant bowling from Moeen. Saw Maqsood dancing down the wicket and he fired one in down the legside leading to a stumping. Nifty glovework from Sam Billings. That was good to see. England enjoying themselves now. 75/7 (12 ov).

Pakistan's tail made a good fight of it at the end but England hold their nerve and win by 14 runs. An entertaining game and a good win for England.

I think that was a deserved win for England and it looked like they wanted it more than Pakistan did for some reason.

The next two games though won't be as easy I wouldn't have thought and England will have to perform to at least that level again to get anything from the series.

And after watching the 2nd ODI while it was another good game, I'm still not sure if Pakistan are taking it as seriously as the English and while no nation plays to lose, for me it looks like England have got the mental edge over Pakistan and coming in to the series I wouldn't have expected that.