Pakistan eye victory

Pakistan captain Shahid afridi during a practice session at the Dubai International Stadium.

Pakistan and England will contest the first two Twenty20 (T20) tussles at the Dubai International Stadium here tonight (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday) evening in this best-of-three series.
The tourists come into this back-to-back double header on a high following their 3-1 victory over the home side in the four-match, one-day international (ODI) contest earlier this month.
However, the hosts will want to bounce back staunchly from that prior setback in the limited-overs arena with a timely, twin win in the shortest format of the bat and ball game.
The third and final tie is scheduled for Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Monday (November 30th), when there could well be little more than pride to play for if one of these two international teams registers successive successes here in the emirate beforehand.
Nonetheless, it's - of course - very hard to just casually assume that will happen given the imponderables and vagaries of T20 cricket
A lot can happen, and change, in the space of one delivery, let alone a single over, so it would be foolhardy to predict how this is going to pan out from this point on.
Pakistan and England warmed up for this dual duel in the desert with rather routine triumphs over comparatively moderate opposition in Hong Kong and Aaqib Javed's UAE respectively in midweek.
Pakistan beat Hong Kong by 64 runs three days ago. Mohammad Rizwan's unbeaten knock of 55no, allied with solid starts from Rafatullah Mohmand (25), Sohaib Maqsood (25) and Aamer Yamin (27), got Pakistan up to 167-7.
Hong Kong creditably made it to three figures (103ao) during their turn at the crease, thanks primarily to Mark Chapman's half-century (50).
The HK wickets were shared around to boot, with skipper Shahid Afridi (2-21), Bilal Asif (2-13), Imran Khan Jnr (1-21), Sohail Tanvir (1-8) and Aamer Yamin (1-29) all claiming scalps. Afridi was also responsible for two run-outs and Khan Jnr the other one.
England's half-centurion Jason Roy (59) and Alex Hales (40) meanwhile did the majority of the damage with an opening stand of 92 and better than a-run-a-ball, cameo contributions from Moeen Ali (20), Sam Billings (12) and Morgan himself (12no) thereafter helped get England up to 174-6 from their full allocation of overs against the UAE.
In reply, the UAE's top four batsmen had all been dislodged by the likes of Chris Jordan (2-14), Liam Plunkett (1-28) and Reece Topley (1-23) with the score on a paltry 31.
That decimation of the UAE's top order then left their middle-to-lower counterparts susceptible to the spin of Ali (4-11) and Stephen Parry (1-8) and they were ultimately restricted to 95-9 and thus suffered a 79-run reverse.
England would be wise to remember though that the UAE are not the second best T20 team in world cricket, a 'warm-up' is exactly that and Pakistan's pumped-up players will represent an entirely different challenge altogether under the lights in the 'Ring of Fire.'