CWC- England v Pakistan

[Gary Baldi]

Bairstow and Roy have looked nervous and tentative, so the starts we've got used to haven't got there. We still scored over 300 again, but like yesterday, we were behind and didn't quite ever get to par.

Perhaps dropping Plunkett didn't help either - we missed his bowling in the middle overs quite badly.

 

[unification]

There was a logic to playing Mark Wood. Pakistan bricked it against the Windies having to face aggressive, short deliveries and Archer and Wood offered that. So, one of Plunkett or Woakes had to go. Since the batting would be weakened without Woakes, he stayed and Plunkett dropped out.

It’s easy to criticise in retrospect. I think they made a good call even if it didn’t pay off. Neither Archer or Woakes bowled particularly brilliantly yesterday although neither terribly either. It was simply down to lousy fielding that cost England the win.