Afridi double stalls England (From Swindon Advertiser)

Afridi double stalls England

12:42pm Monday 13th February 2012 in National Sport © Press Association 2011

Kevin Pietersen's return to opening the innings resulted in a laboured contribution before he became the first of two England batsmen bowled in successive balls by Shahid Afridi on Monday.

Pietersen and Alastair Cook survived a succession of minor scrapes in a sedate stand of 57 out of 64 for two in the first 15 overs against Pakistan.

Captain Cook surprisingly outscored his partner as off-spinner Mohammad Hafeez, in particular, proved hard to get away after England had chosen to bat at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in this first of four one-day internationals.

Pietersen, who was to muster a paltry 14 from 36 balls, had three decidedly shaky moments over his first two runs.

A minor fumble at mid-on was enough to allow him to make his ground when he might otherwise have struggled with a scrambled single to get off the mark.

He was still on one when Hafeez squandered Pakistan's sole permitted DRS procedure after Pietersen somehow missed an off-break which got through to his back leg, on the defence, but was not out lbw because impact was outside off-stump.

Then Pietersen rightly invoked DRS again when umpire Ahsan Raza gave him out lbw to a delivery which was clearing the stumps.

Cook needed DRS too, on 30, to overturn the lbw decision of Simon Taufel which was confounded by Hotspot's indication of a big inside edge against Hafeez.

But there was no such refuge for Pietersen soon afterwards, after he missed a leg-break in Afridi's second over and was bowled off-stump.

Jonathan Trott never managed to put bat on ball, missing a delivery from Afridi which snaked through the gate, to bring Ravi Bopara to the crease but he managed to survive the hat-trick ball.