England move closer to semi-finals with dominant Pakistan win

Katherine Brunt claimed a wicket with the first ball of the match, from which England scarcely looked back in a professional display

Christchurch: Pakistan 105, England 107-1 - England win by nine wickets

Scorecard

England moved a step closer to the semi-finals of the Women's World Cup by easing to a straightforward victory over Pakistan in Christchurch.

For the first time in the tournament, Heather Knight's side picked up a glut of early wickets – led by Katherine Brunt – and were mostly clinical thereafter, with Danni Wyatt leading England home at a canter with the bat.

Brunt and Sophie Ecclestone each picked up three scalps, while there were runouts from Amy Jones and Tammy Beaumont as England dominated on a green pitch that offered encouragement to their seamers to bowl fuller than earlier in the competition.

After winning the toss, Brunt enjoyed the perfect start, enticing Nahida Khan to edge the first ball of the match – the perfect outswinger – to Knight at slip. Bismah Maroof soon followed, short of her ground after taking on a risky second run to backward square leg, with Jones whipping off her wicketkeeping gloves to retrieve the ball and beat Pakistan's captain with an excellent throw.

Beaumont added a second runout to remove Umaima Sohail, throwing down the stumps from mid-off, before Brunt returned to trap Nida Dar in front and clean up Sidra Amin to leave Pakistan 58 for 5.

Any hopes of a counterattack were extinguished when Knight had Aliya Riaz caught and Kate Cross knocked over Sidra Nawaz's leg-stump.

^{Danni Wyatt made just her third ODI fifty in a comprehensive win for England (Sanka Vidanagama/AFP via Getty Images)}

Charlie Dean, who played a starring role in wins over India and New Zealand, was left out in favour of Emma Lamb's extra batting, but Sophie Ecclestone continued her fine form, adding three more wickets to her tally with the help of Jones behind the stumps.

England conceded just six extras and, barring one aberration that saw a miscue land between Ecclestone and Sophia Dunkley, they were far cleaner in their fielding.

In reply, Beaumont fell early on review but England would have been relieved to see her openiner partner, Wyatt, play so fluently. She crashed boundaries through the off-side and midwicket in search of a boost to her team's net run rate, though Diana Baig kept the top order honest with a terrific new-ball spell and deserved more than her solitary breakthrough.

Wyatt (76*) was dropped early at gully by Dar but otherwise played exactly the knock required of her. She went to her third ODI half century, maintaining her fine record against Pakistan, against whom she struck her single 50-over hundred.

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