After a drab, demoralising defeat selectors often pick the same team, sometimes out of sheer cussedness, sometimes out of calm shrewdness. For the moment we must conclude it was the latter as far as England were concerned in Abu Dhabi. In their first ODI against Pakistan, with the exception of Eoin Morgan, James Taylor and Reece Topley, England were barely mediocre; in their second the same XI almost delivered a flawless performance. In between the two games none of the participating players had practised. Instead they must have listened, then contemplated before galvanising themselves to play in a manner that now gives them a...
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