England vs Pakistan LIVE: Cricket score and updates as historic T20 series gets started today

Pakistan have won six of their previous 20 completed T20s against England, with 13 losses and a solitary tie in Sharjah in 2015 (in which England won the Super Over).

The two teams last met in the summer of 2021, when England came from behind to win the three-match series 2-1, after Shaheen Shah and Babar Azam had combined to win the series opener at Trent Bridge.

England have been using the last few days to acclimatize to the conditions and humidity in Pakistan ahead of the today’s first T20 in Karachi.

Moeen Ali says that the talk over England bringing their ‘B team’ to Pakistan isn’t accurate at all and the omissions of some experienced players like Jonny Bairstow (injury) and Jason Roy (out of form) provides the younger members of the squad with opportunities to impress.

“The only person that’s not here is Ben Stokes from the guys who could be.” said Moeen. “We still have a very good side. I don’t see it at all as a second-string team.

“It’s not through selection, it’s more through unfortunate injuries, but it gives opportunities for new players to come in.”

A seven-match T20 series tour is a very unique prospect and should display all the excitement of the game’s shortest format – at international level – whilst giving both sides precious time to hone their skills ahead of the T20 World Cup this October/November.

For years England have been one of the dominant forces in one-day cricket but they are going through a period of rebuilding following Eoin Morgan’s retirement from the international scene and are up against a confident Pakistan side very ably captained by Babar Azam.

England have elected to bring a young squad to Pakistan although most of the players have some form of international experience.

For various reasons Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root and Ben Stokes have not been selected and England should line-up with a, perhaps unfamiliar, but exciting batting line-up.

Here’s a look at both squads:

England squad: Jos Buttler (c), Moeen Ali, Harry Brook, Jordan Cox, Sam Curran, Ben Duckett, Liam Dawson, Richard Gleeson, Alex Hales, Tom Helm, Will Jacks, Dawid Malan, Adil Rashid, Phil Salt, Olly Stone, Reece Topley, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Luke Wood, Mark Wood

Pakistan squad: Babar Azam (c), Shadab Khan (vc), Aamir Jamal, Abrar Ahmed, Asif Ali, Haider Ali, Haris Rauf, Iftikhar Ahmed, Khushdil Shah, Mohammad Hasnain, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Wasim Junior, Naseem Shah, Shahnawaz Dahani, Shan Masood, Usman Qadir

Sky Sports are showing all seven T20s with coverage available on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Cricket. If you’re not a Sky customer you can grab a NOWTV Day Pass here to watch without a subscription.

Test Match Special will also broadcast ball-by-ball commentary of the tour with coverage accessible via BBC Radio Five Live Sports Extra on the BBC Sport website and the BBC Sounds App.

Moeen Ali believes it was “meant to be” as he prepares to captain England men’s cricket team for their groundbreaking T20 international against Pakistan in Karachi.

Moeen – who is of Pakistani heritage – will lead the side for the first of the seven-match T20 series due to the absence of regular skipper Jos Buttler with a calf injury.

England haven’t played an international in Pakistan since 2006, with an attack by gunmen on the touring Sri Lanka cricket team in 2009 making the prospect too much of a security risk.

No international cricket was played in Pakistan for six years after the 2009 attack, before Zimbabwe contested an ODI series there in 2015, Sri Lanka returned for the first men’s Test match in 2019 and Australia played in all three formats earlier this year.

Now England – who pulled their men’s and women’s teams out of scheduled tours to the country last year following a security threat – are returning at last and 35-year-old Moeen knows how important their presence is to the land of his mother’s birth, as well as acknowledging how fitting it is that he specifically will captain the tourists.

Moeen Ali has the honour of captaining England for the first game they’ll be playing in Pakistan since 2005. His family were born in Pakistan before emigrating to England where Moeen grew up and became a professional cricketer.

With such a historic occasion on the cards in this series Moeen has been reflecting on his heritage as a child of both Pakistan and England and what it means to represent one country against the other.

“When my grandfather Shafayat came to England from Pakistan after the Second World War, I doubt even he would have imagined that his grandson would return to the country of his heritage and represent his adopted country as a professional sportsman.” wrote Moeen in a column for the Daily Mail.

“I have been privileged enough to do many overseas trips as an England cricketer from Australia to South Africa to the Caribbean but this tour to Pakistan might be the most special of the lot.

“It is going to be memorable playing in front of the Pakistani crowds and also an immense honour to deputise for Jos Buttler, while he recovers from injury, and captain England.

“For those who do not know, my family background is both English and Pakistani. In fact, my late grandmother was called Betty Cox but I reckon the cricketing side of me definitely comes from my Pakistani side.

“I grew up playing the game with a taped up ball like they do in Pakistan and my dad always says I have had that Asian style of playing the game without any fear.

“This country holds a special place in my heart, for it was here where my mother was born and it was in Karachi where my dad and his twin brother had their lives saved by a doctor when they were seven months old.”

Hello and welcome to The Independent’s coverage of the first T20 between England and Pakistan. This is a seven-match preparation series for the T20 World Cup which starts in mid-October and the first series England have played in Pakistan for 17 years.

Jos Buttler captains the squad but is still nursing a calf injury and will sit out of the opening fixture – at least – with Moeen Ali deputising in the role. It is something of a full-circle move for Moeen whose family emigrated to England from Pakistan and he says it is a moment he’ll be forever proud of.

Elsewhere Alex Hales returns to the squad for the first time since 2019 when he failed two drugs tests in the build-up to the World Cup and lost the trust of previous one-day captain Eoin Morgan. Hales should provide some explosive firepower at the top of the order with both Jason Roy (out of form) and Jonny Bairstow (injured) not available.

How much this series will actively help the team to prepare for the T20 World Cup in Australia is another matter. Conditions in Pakistan are vastly different but at the very least England will want to win what is a historic series.