Eng Pak ODI 1: England Beat Pak by 24 Runs After Davies Stars with 87

England managed to get the better of Pakistan yet again, this time with a relatively new face as the hosts triumphed over the troubled visitors by twenty-fours in the first ODI at Riverside, Chester-le-Street.

james anderson celebrates as shahid afridi walks b

England were propped to a strong total of 274 from forty-one overs after their captain combined rather smoothly with Steve Davies at the top of the order in a match that saw wet outfield delay the match considerably to reduce the match to forty-one overs a side.

England enjoyed a decent batting effort by the time Andrew Strauss was dismissed for forty-one with England's score reading seventy-eight at the end of twelve overs. Davies continued to caress the field with nicely timed strokes to keep the England board rocking, much to Pakistan's chagrin. Jonathan Trott only complicated matters, once again standing out with his sixty-nine runs that followed up the opening effort. Ravi Bopara's thirty-five run cameo nullified the only bright side to Pakistan's bowling, Saeed Ajmal's four wicket burst and Shoaib Akhtar's self restrained bowling.

Chasing a daunting total, Pakistan did have their moments of redemption, Kamran Akmal scoring a half century in the opening position. Fawad Alam and Umar Akmal tried to add substance in the middle but Pakistan's downfall lay in the fact that they kept losing wickets at regular intervals that kept adding distance to the elusive win. While their batting was a significant improvement over the Twenty20 performances, England were in control of their game, despite the fact that only James Anderson had extremely economical figures compared to the rest of the bowling line up.

Pakistan's wickets eventually caught up with them, as they lost the match by twenty-four runs as they were halted at 250 for nine when they ran out of overs.

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