Deadline: May 17, 2019 at 5:30 PM IST
Venue: Trent Bridge, Nottingham
Pitch and conditions
The weather is going to be cloudy throughout Friday, and we may witness rain interrupting play in short spells.
The average first and second innings scores read 250 and 216 at the Trent Bridge. The highest total registered here is 481 for 6 by England against Australia.
Probable XI for England: Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow (wk), Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Jos Buttler (c), Joe Denly, Tom Curran, Chris Woakes, David Willey, Liam Plunkett/Jofra Archer
Probable XI for Pakistan: Imam-ul-Haq, Fakhar Zaman, Babad Azam, Haris Sohail, Sarfraz Ahmed (c & wk), Asif Ali, Imad Wasim, Faheem Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Shaheen Shah Afridi/Mohammad Hasnain, Junaid Khan
Fantasy team
We have opted for a fantasy cricket team on the basis of players’ impact, recent performances, and credit points.
Note that you can now change your team after the toss. You can also check players’ performances in the last 5 matches. Tap on the players’ names to get the data while making your fantasy team.
My XI: Jos Buttler (wk), Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman, Jason Roy, Imam-ul-Haq (c), Jonny Bairstow (vc), Chris Woakes, Faheem Ashraf, Liam Plunkett, Tom Curran, David Willey
Let’s start with the bad news first: Eoin Morgan has been suspended for one ODI for maintaining slow over-rate in the previous match.
Good news is, Jos Buttler will be back in the playing XI and may as well be the acting captain.
What to expect in the fourth ODI? Pakistan cannot win the series from here, but they can level it. They lost the last two matches despite scoring 361 and 358.
What can Pakistan do better? Take catches. They dropped Jason Roy who went on to score a fifty. We saw a similar blunder when Moeen Ali was batting, but the match was already lost by then.
The other thing they need to work on, as has been the case for years, is running between the wickets. Off his own bowling, Tom Curran could run past the non-striker Haris Sohail (who was hustling for a quick single) and kick the ball onto the stumps to run him out. Sohail never realised that Curran could sprint past him, that he was minding his own pace.
Pakistan are lucky that either of the openers go on to score a daddy hundred. Fakhar Zaman smashed a blistering 138 in a massive run chase, while Imam-ul-Haq scored a resolute 151 to set up a massive target. Meanwhile, Asif Ali bludgeoned fifties in both matches, gradually becoming Pakistan’s mainstay in middle order.
Pakistan’s bowling, however, has been contrary to their batting. Three of their six bowlers conceded over 8 RPO in the second match, while five of the six conceded as many in the third. In all, they have taken a mere 6 wickets in 2 matches. Add fielding woes to it.
England, on the other hand, have no problems at all. Their openers are batting at a strike rate that we witness in T20 cricket, and the middle order has never been this outstanding. Give them any target and they will chase it with ease, so much so that they attained 359 runs – their second-highest chase – with 5.1 overs left unused.
Their bowling unit, like Pakistan’s, has been leaking runs, but they have at least managed to take wickets at crucial junctures.
Power players
With 228 runs at an incredible average of 114, Imam-ul-Haq sits atop the batting chart. Bairstow (179 runs) and Roy (163) are at the second and third positions respectively.
Buttler has batted only once, blasting 110 off 55. Given his form in the recently concluded IPL, it won’t be a bad idea to make him your power player.
Woakes’ 5 wickets are the most in the series. Plunkett (4 wickets) and Willey (3 wickets) follow him. From Pakistan, none of the bowlers has taken more than a wicket
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