World T20: England to rely on pace for flying start

England begin the defence of their World Twenty20 crown against Afghanistan, a country more used to war than wickets, today. Quite how they have produced a team good enough to be playing the top dogs is one of the minor miracles sport throws up, but Stuart Broad's men must not pause to marvel for a moment, for the fledglings possess enough talent to upend the holders should they have an off night.

Not that England are likely to be complacent. Without Kevin Pietersen, they have plenty to prove and know it, holders or not. When Broad was asked whether he had been watching Pietersen in his new role as TV pundit he said: "I've got this Formula One video game at the minute. I'm a bit addicted to it, so I've not seen anything."

Two wins out of two in their warm-up games, against Australia and Pakistan, have raised England's confidence levels, yet they know only one team are under pressure tonight in Colombo and it is not Afghanistan, whose fearless bravura gave India a fright in their first game on Wednesday before they lost by 23 runs.

"It's important when you go into World Cups that the confidence is high and throughout the camp it's brilliant," Broad said after practice yesterday. "The guys are buzzing. There are eight of us who have been in the squad before and won this tournament but a lot of the guys haven't so it's new to them and you get that first-day-at-school feeling.

"It's important you control that, though, because you don't want to build the World Cup up as something major when what's important is what we do with bat and ball. If we do that well we should get a good result."

India kept things simple against Afghanistan, their plan comprising of reaching 150 then backing their professionalism and experience to see off any challenge. Had the coolness of MS Dhoni, their captain, faltered at any stage it might not have worked (India scored 159 only thanks to his 10 runs off the last two balls), but he understands the effects of pressure well and when it bit hard in the last few overs, the new boys fell away.

England will be confident of defending anything similar at the Premadasa Stadium as they have a better bowling attack than India, though they will need to assess the pitch first. Unless it is the same one used the other night (which began to turn towards the end), they will probably play at least three quick bowlers. If Afghanistan's batsmen are used to anything, having mostly learnt their cricket in the refugee camps around Peshawar in Pakistan, it will be spin, so putting pace on the ball - which not many other teams will be looking to do here - is probably the best way to nullify their talent for striking a long ball.

The length of the bowling will be important too, with Broad, Steve Finn and Jade Dernbach banging the
ball in. Expect lots of slower-ball bouncers, too, that stick in the pitch, a crucial tactic in winning the last World T20 in the Caribbean.

"When T20 first came round it was all about yorkers, yorkers, yorkers but we have seen with Jade that slower balls into the wicket are hard to get away, especially if the pitch is slow and turning, which a few of them are over here," Broad said. "So I think bowlers are a bit more open to bowling even six different balls an over, while batsmen have worked out ways to use the 360 degrees of the ground."

England's biggest challenge will be for their batsmen to score at better than seven runs an over against spin on a sluggish pitch.

Yesterday in practice they had two nets set up, one with batsmen playing big shots against spin and another, run by Mushtaq Ahmed, where they played more subtle shots. Afghanistan have a decent off-spinner in Mohammad Nabi who, had he been able to catch, might have kept India's total within reach.

Having options that are not high risk against spin is what is likely to make or break England's defence of their title, although in T20 one man having his moment can turn the game on its head.

The best teams do not rely on -inspiration to strike but on delivering consistently high standards with both bat and ball. So far England's bowling has had the look of winners but not yet their batting, although in this -frenetic format perceptions can change in an instant.