Pakistan VS England T20I: Mark Wood and Harry Brook are the stars for the visitors as they record an emphatic 63-run win

Put in to bat first, England posted a mammoth 221-3 in their 20 overs, courtesy of big scores from Harry Brook (80) and Ben Duckett (70).

In the second inning, Mark Wood did what he does best – bowl menacingly and with pace. The result? A dominant 63-run win gave the visitors a 2-1 lead in the seven-game T20I series.

The first mistake England learned from their previous encounter was that a score just around the 200-run mark is not enough. They scored 199 in the last match, in which Pakistan won the game by ten wickets.

And so, where did they go and what did they do? Score 221 this time, giving their bowlers an extra 20 runs to play with in the second innings when it becomes easier to bat under floodlights.

Not that it was a guarantee they’d get those many runs. Mohammad Hasnain got rid of Phil Salt early, leaving plenty for debutant opener Will Jacks to make.

He acquiesced himself well with a 22-ball 40. Still, when Usman Qadir dismissed him, and Dawid Malan – whose poor showing with the bat continued with a 15-ball 14 – it looked like Pakistan might be restricting England to a defendable total again.

However, Duckett and Brook combined to put an unbeaten 139-run partnership that took the game away from the Pakistanis.

Both batted with fierce intent – Brook scored at a strike rate of 231.43 while Duckett scored at 166.67 showing that neither of them was willing to play in any way except one.

It helped, perhaps, that they had the likes of Moeen Ali and Sam Curran still on the bench. But Duckett and Brook did well to not only revive the innings but to do so without letting the scoring rate drop too much.

The other mistake that England learnt from was not to let Pakistan’s openers Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan settle.

The two work best as a pair – their batting styles compliment each other, and both put a price on their wicket once they’re well set.

However, England didn’t allow them to get set. Wood unsettled both openers with raw pace and got the breakthrough when he got Babar to hole out to Reece Topley.

Topley then joined the party by getting rid of Rizwan. With both their openers gone, Pakistan’s fragile middle-order was again exposed.

Haider Ali (3) and Iftikhar Ahmed (6) departed without troubling the scores too much, whereas Khushdil Shah (29) and Mohammad Nawaz (19) didn’t fare much better.

The only batsman who made a strong case for himself was Shan Masood, whose 40-ball 66 was the standout innings of the game. But it didn’t stop the hosts from succumbing to a heavy defeat.

The fourth match of the series takes place at the same venue on Sunday before the action shifts to Lahore for the remaining three games.