Pakistan vs England: England’s chance to prove they are one-day wonders

England insist they mean business this time, though that too has been said before

England captain Eoin Morgan at work in a nets session at Zayed Cricket Stadium yesterday (Getty Images)

When England last lost a Test series against Pakistan in the UAE they responded by winning all four one-day matches. It would perhaps be extreme to expect an exact reprise almost four years on but it is entirely within the tourists’ scope to prevail once more.

An exciting team, full of self-belief and a licence to play forceful cricket, have made abundant progress in the few months since being assembled. In June, it may be recalled that their deeds ignited the home summer and restored the nation’s faith in the game at a time when it was at a disturbingly low ebb.

It would be folly to expect too much. Early in 2012, after Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen each scored two centuries in a succession of unexpected victories, there was much conjecture about what it would mean for an exciting team’s – notice a pattern here – prospects in the World Cup three years later. As it turned out, it laid an utterly false trail to Australia 2015, where neither Cook nor Pietersen appeared and the team were an embarrassing flop.

England insist they mean business this time, though that too has been said before. Limited-overs cricket will never again be the poor relation and Andrew Strauss, the director of England cricket, is adamant that it will be given equal weight to Test cricket in selection and planning.

The trouble is that he has also to change the mindset of most cricket followers for whom Test cricket remains the acme. This is a key difference between England (and to a lesser extent Australia) and every other cricket-playing country.

When Pakistan lost to England 4-0 four years ago, there was an outcry at home (and had the series actually been held in Pakistan it might have been much worse than that). No one cared to recall that weeks earlier their boys had won the Test series comfortably because no one cared.

Of that England team only two players survive – Eoin Morgan, who is now the captain, and Jos Buttler, who made his ODI debut in the last match. Morgan, who is playing his first match after being concussed when he was hit on the helmet by a ball from Mitchell Starc of Australia at Old Trafford in September, was guardedly buoyant yesterday.

“It was a very productive summer for us, in which we’ve seen a lot of our youngsters produce some unbelievable performances,” he said. “This, again, will be different. But I think the culture and the platform the summer gave us will hold us in good stead.”

Buttler, dropped from the team for the third Test, will return today to a form of the game he can transcend. All being well, his mind will be uncluttered by the perceived need for restraint and the rapid hand speed and joyous improvisation will return in all their glory.

England will stay true to the template they laid down in the summer, though a precise repetition will demand quicker surfaces than were seen in the recent Test series. They have attacking options all the way down their batting order and Moeen Ali, their opener in the World Cup, is likely to be at seven.

Their bowling resources look slightly slender because of inexperience. But that is what planning for the next World Cup in 2019 is all about (not forgetting the Champions Trophy in 2017, which is also in England).

Azhar Ali, Pakistan’s new limited overs captain, promised his side would try to dominate the opposition spinners as they had in the Test series. They, too, are building towards the next World Cup but have nonetheless recalled 37-year-old Younis Khan.