ROUT PLAYED

England left stunned as Pakistan dish out eight-wicket hammering

ENGLAND’S one-day revolution was brought to its knees in Cardiff as Pakistan revelled in their home from home.

With Swansea-born Imad Wasim in their ranks, the boyos in green looked as comfortable on a used pitch as if they were playing in Lahore, prompting England skipper Eoin Morgan to lament: “There was no home advantage.”

And to think after two years of crash, bang and walloping cricket, it was a second-hand surface that required some oldfashioned accumulation that was their undoing in an eight-wicket hammering.

England’s failure to adapt meant they were mugged in their own tournament, by a side they marmalised four times out of five last summer.

Regardless of the pitch, Pakistan were outstanding and completely outplayed, outwitted and outskilled England.

And just over a year on from a devastating defeat in the final of a World T20, England have crashed out a round earlier and in far less dramatic style. Somehow this loss seems worse. It wasn’t even close.

“We left ourselves short today adapting to conditions,” admitted Morgan (below). “It’s a big frustration because we’ve played some great cricket in this tournament and we weren’t anywhere close to it today.

“Fair credit to Pakistan. They played brilliantly. They adjusted to conditions extremely well and the wicket was obviously slow and low and hard to get away to start with.

“Knowing that we were going to play on a used wicket potentially brought Pakistan’s game closer to their home. I don’t think there was any home advantage.” It may seem cruel to point it out, but until Morgan’s rush of blood – when he charged down the pitch and edged behind for 33 – things had been going well.

Pakistan had lost their premier bowler Mohammad Amir just before the game to a back spasm and Jonny Bairstow, who replaced Jason Roy, had been given two lives on his way to 43. But after Joe Root edged behind for a composed 46 and Morgan followed, the bottom fell out of the England innings and their 211 all out was way short of the mark.

Only Ben Stokes grasped the situation to play riskfree cricket until he had no choice but to hit out and was caught for a boundaryfree 34.

But for a team that is used to smashing out the lights and topping 300 for fun, this was a tentative, disjointed innings that shows they still have an awful lot to learn over the next two years before the World Cup.

Pakistan’s openers Fakhar Zaman and Azhar Ali backed up their bowlers’ great work with 50s as they eased into Sunday’s final with 13 overs to spare.