Ben Stokes, disciplined bowling power England to second T20 World Cup title win

MELBOURNE: A clinical bowling effort backed by a sensible knock from Ben Stokes helped England beat Pakistan by six wickets in the 2022 ICC T20 World Cup final at Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday.

England won the toss and decided to bowl first against Pakistan in the final, which proved to be the right decision. Pakistan was never able to get going as England took wickets in regular intervals thereby putting brakes on the scoring. The Pak batters struggled against a well-disciplined England bowling as they end up scoring a below-par score of 137/8 in 20 overs. Shan Masood (38), Babar Azam (32) were the top scorers for Pakistan. Sam Curran was the pick of the bowlers for England as he took 3 wickets giving away just 12 runs in 4 overs. Adil Rashid scalped 2 wickets in 22 runs.

Chasing 138, England lost Alex Hales in the last ball of the first over bowled by Shaheen Shah Afridi. Skipper Buttler decided to go his usual way of aggressive batting which relieved some pressure. England lost Phil Salt in the 4th over and Jos Buttler in the 6th over as the match tilted in favour of Pakistan. However, the required run per over was within England's reach, thanks to the powerplay batting from Jos Buttler and the low target set by Pakistan. England lost another wicket in the 13th over with 84 runs on the board and the match was very much in the balance. Ben Stokes was slowly but steadily batting on one side which was crucial to the English team's chances. Moeen Ali played a good cameo scoring 19 from 13 balls. When he got out in the 19th over, England only needed 6 to win from 10 balls. All-rounder Ben Stokes scored the winning runs with an over to spare. He scored 52 runs from 49 balls.

England has now become the champions in both formats of white ball cricket after winning the 50 over World Cup in 2019 and the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia.