BREAKING: Brook hits sparkling century as England reach T20 semis
England recover from slow start to run chase to power past Pakistan
Captain Harry Brook hit a superb 100 as England recovered from a poor start to their innings to chase down 166 and beat Pakistan to seal a place in the last four of the T20 World Cup.
England were reeling at 17-2 and 35-3 as Phil Salt, Jacob Bethell and Jos Buttler coughed up cheap wickets but Brook steadied the ship before hitting some trademark blows to accelerate to victory.
He fell shortly after bringing up his first T20 hundred in Pallekele in just 50 balls and it was left to Jofra Archer to hit the winning runs in the last over.
South Africa or West Indies look England’s most likely semi-final opponents. India are still technically in the running but are in trouble after their heavy defeat to South Africa and need big wins with a good run rate to squeeze through.
“I’m very happy with the way we played there,” said Brook.
“It’s just nice to get through to the semi-finals now, but we still have one more game against New Zealand so we focus on that before the bigger prize at the other side.
“There’s obviously areas that we still want to improve on. You can never quite get perfection but we are always striving for it.”
Liam Dawson had earlier taken three for 24, with Archer and Jamie Overton claiming a couple of wickets each, to restrict Pakistan to 164 for nine, with Sahibzada Farhan making 63, before Shaheen Shah Afridi gave England a fright with three powerplay wickets.
Saim Ayub fell to a short Archer delivery when he was caught at deep backward square leg and Dawson dismissed skipper Salman Agha after Overton took a diving catch.
Babar Azam (25) looked in good form when he smashed Archer for consecutive boundaries but Overton came into the attack and knocked him over his stumps to leave Pakistan wobbling at 73-3 after 11 overs.
Opener Sahibzada Farhan (63 off 45) continued to frustrate the England bowlers with seven fours and two sixes as he brought up his half-century before being trapped lbw by Overton.
Fakhar Zaman chipped in with a quickfire 25 and Shadab Khan (23) batted with Pakistan’s tail to post a total that was ultimately a few runs short.