winning the toss after a half-hour rain delay, in overcast conditions that matched the prevailing mood after a week of damaging and distracting newspaper revelations, Paul Collingwood chose to bowl first to keep his team on the right side of any potential Duckworth-Lewis calculations. He was rewarded with a diligent display that kept Pakistan's big-hitters very much in check throughout, and though three catches of varying degrees of difficulty were put down, England conceded just eight fours in the innings, no sixes (for the first time in Pakistan's T20 history), and a solitary extra in the 19th over.
Ryan Sidebottom, one of the key components of England's World Twenty20 triumph back in May, opened the innings with a loose over that was biffed for 12, but that was arguably the only moment that Pakistan were in command of their innings. Two balls later, Kamran Akmal heaved across the line for Tim Bresnan to make England's first breakthrough, and Pakistan struggled to regain the upper hand thereafter.
Playing in his second Twenty20 and his first for four years, Mohammad Yousuf played some extravagant lofted drives in a carefree 26 from 18 balls, but Swann made his now-habitual early impact, striking with his fifth delivery as Eoin Morgan pouched a lofted pull at midwicket. Two overs later, Shahzaib Hasan was dragged down the track and smartly stumped by Steven Davies, who has taken over from Michael Lumb at the top of the order, and has taken the gloves off Craig Kieswetter to boot.
With extravagant turn on offer right from the start of the spinners' spell, Yardy once again put in an admirable spell, and was rewarded with a sharp caught-and-bowled to end a frenetic but uneffective innings from Fawad Alam, who groped and prodded to 20 from 29 balls, but never looked likely to dominate the bowling. Afridi was much more effective in his 16 from 14 balls, even though he benefitted from two lives in a single over from Stuart Broad - the second of which was a dolly to Luke Wright, running in from the long-on boundary. Abdul Razzaq, with 49 sixes in his Twenty20 international career, didn't make it to the middle.
This is England's first Twenty20 international since their memorable victory over Australia in Barbados back in May, but with some 4000 tickets still unsold, and more gaps in the stands expected on Tuesday in the wake of a turbulent week, it was not quite the homecoming they might have envisaged. Many of those who have turned up have done so on sufferance, as one banner succinctly put: "I'm only here because I bought my ticket two months ago."
Paul Collingwood, however, was prepared to put on a good show, regardless. "It's about getting back on the park, playing cricket and putting some smiles on people's faces," he said. England made two changes to the side that won the World Twenty20, with Davies taking over from Lumb, and Ravi Bopara slotting in at No. 3 in place of the out-of-form Kevin Pietersen.
Pakistan, meanwhile, have been forced to ring the changes, with three of their key men suspended by the ICC pending an investigation by the Anti-Corruption and Security Unit. With Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir both missing, Shoaib Akhtar and Wahab Riaz take over the seam bowling duties, alongside Umar Gul.
England 1 Craig Kieswetter, 2 Steven Davies (wk), 3 Ravi Bopara, 4 Paul Collingwood (capt), 5 Eoin Morgan, 6 Michael Yardy, 7 Luke Wright, 8 Tim Bresnan, 9 Stuart Broad, 10 Graeme Swann, 11 Ryan Sidebottom.
Pakistan 1 Shahzaib Hasan, 2 Kamran Akmal (wk), 3 Mohammad Yousuf, 4 Umar Akmal, 5 Fawad Alam, 6 Shahid Afridi (capt), 7 Abdul Razzaq, 8 Umar Gul, 9 Wahab Riaz, 10 Shoaib Akhtar, 11 Saeed Ajmal
