Lumb And Taylor See Lions To Series-Levelling Win

Lumb And Taylor See Lions To Series-Levelling Win

Michael Lumb scored a match-winning century for the Lions.

©Action Images / John Sibley

England Lions 232-7 (Lumb 110, Taylor 61) beat
Pakistan A 231-8 (Umair Khan 61) by three wickets
Second 50-over game, Dubai
Scorecard

Michael Lumb scored a century and James Taylor hit 61 to guide England Lions to a three-wicket win over Pakistan A that levelled their one-day series 1-1 with a game to play.

Umair Khan made 61 as Pakistan A, put in to bat by England, scored 231 for eight with Steve Finn and Sajid Mahmood taking two wickets apiece.

With the exception of captain and opener Mohammad Hafeez, the top eight players all got starts but Umair was the only one to go on and reach a half-century.

In contrast, Lumb made 110 in 128 balls to anchor the Lions' run chase. Peter Trego (4), Ian Bell (0) and Chris Woakes (1) fell cheaply but Lumb added 41 with Andrew Gale (21) for the second wicket and 109 with Taylor for the fourth.

A flurry of wickets, Wahab Riaz and Raza Hasan both taking three, put the game back in the balance before the Lions got home with an over to spare.

"It was a good win for the boys today," Lumb said. "I thought it was a fair score on this wicket, maybe we could have put a bit more pressure on them at the death but thought we bowled pretty well. We knew we needed a couple of big partnerships if we were going to chase down that sort of total and it was pretty special getting a hundred.
 
"We're 1-1 going into the last game so we did the job today and Friday is a really big game for us. They're a good side and we'll need to play good cricket to beat them but we know that we're capable of it and it would be great to leave here with another series win."

The final game is on Friday 26th February.

© Cricket World 2010

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