When England had a ball

Ahead of the final of World Cup 2022, the battle lines had seemingly been drawn with a great focus on the duel between England's batting and Pakistan's bowling that would decide the winner. That face-off remained a spectacle by itself with Pakistan gamely striving to defend a total of 137 and nearly pulling it off until a freak injury to Shaheen Afridi, and Ben Stokes derailed their plans.

But this part, and the innings, felt like a twist added to a climax that had perhaps already gotten an ending. Pakistan, as Babar Azam and Shan Masood, would later concede in their post match press interactions, had fallen well short of a target that they were eyeing.

They had been denied, by England's best suit of the tournament - their death bowling. It had been done before to a near-similar script. A few threatening knocks from the opposition that were nipped in the bud, an Adil Rashid masterclass through the middle overs followed by a death-overs choke. In that game, against Sri Lanka at the Sydney Cricket Ground, England had found their end overs being dominated by a host of slower balls from Sam Curran. The pitch was a used one, and pace off had meant Sri Lanka's hitters were holing out more often in the deep.

This script though superficially similar, had a few notable changes which only underlined England's mastery.

Unlike SCG, the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday had played its part in dictating different tactics to be used. The very long square boundaries, and shorter straight boundaries along with a pitch that had a bit of a tennis-ball bounce, had ensured that scoring square of the wicket was the toughest ask when the right fields were set. So, unlike against Sri Lanka, where Sam Curran and Mark Wood had paired through the last four overs with contrasting methods - Curran with pace off the ball, and Wood pounding hard lengths at good pace - here, the ask was going to be different. And Curran had to pair with the man who had replaced the injured Wood, Chris Jordan.

The final four overs, where Pakistan believed they fell behind, saw the pair of Curran and Jordan bowl four overs and concede 18 runs between them and also pick up four wickets. It's as good as England have been all tournament in this period:

23/6 v AFG, Perth

30/7 v IRE, Melbourne

36/3 vs NZ, Brisbane

25/5 vs SL, Sydney

68/3 vs IND, Adelaide

England had shown a mastery of bowling to the longer square boundaries. In Adelaide, where the boundaries on the square became shorter, they had slipped.

But in Melbourne, they were back at it once again bowling to plans. Across 24 balls, Curran and Jordan pounded the back of the length with a cocktail of cutters, bouncers and slower balls. Only 2 out of that 24 were pitched full out of which one resulted in a wicket with the change-up entycing Mohammad Nawaz to flick straight to deep midwicket.

England's bowling plans right through the tournament have been tactical, and not technical revealed skipper Jos Buttler at the end of the game.

"I think David Saker has come in as a bowling coach for this tournament and in Pakistan, and I think he's added a huge amount to the group. They just talked about how to get people out and how to defend. There's not been any technical stuff. I would say it's very tactical. Everyone seems very clear.

"Guys taking a lot of ownership makes my job a lot easier to pass it over to them and say - I trust you to bowl whatever you think you need to bowl, and they've just taken their ownership and been brilliant," revealed Buttler.

Saker has been a constant sight at the England net practice, often having one-on-one sessions with the bowlers, standing beside the empty striker's stumps to retrieve the balls, and encouraging them to hit their marks. The training routines had varied in different grounds in the days leading up to a game. In Sydney, he had been working with a target set on the top of off stump for the bowlers to hit, in Adelaide he had placed a cushion at yorker length for them to target so as to enable lesser width. Back in Melbourne, a few hours before the toss, Saker was at it again with two cones placed as indicators of the tramlines and encouraging Curran, Chris Woakes and Chris Jordan to hit them occasionally, and more vociferous claps when Curran got some of the bumpers to rear up quickly.

Curran, the first bowler to get a Man of the Tournament award in T20 World Cups, has swiftly earned the name of being an unpredictable bowler with a lot of arrows in his quiver. Sometimes even from the opposition, as Masood did after the final: "I think Sam Curran has been top-notch for a while. He's an in-demand player. He's been very clever, he watches the batsman till late. He just doesn't go to one predictable length. He can bowl a good yorker, he's got a decent bumper, he bowls his cutters and even his length ball is a heavy ball. When you see his stature, you feel like you want to take him on but throughout the tournament, he's been a class apart."

The variety of control that the bowling group has put together is not lost on England's skipper, Jos Buttler who said, "I think our bowling has improved no end, and I think that's why we're sat here as champions to be honest."

England's white ball legacy, including that of Buttler and the ever-present Ben Stokes might have been built with the might of the bat, and their batting approach. But the 2022 edition, including the final, may just be the moment where the bowlers take as much of the center stage.