I had a friend at Essex University who hailed from Derby. A couple of weeks into her first term, she finally lost her temper at some poor guy who had been the umpteenth person there to mistake her for a Northerner. “I’M FROM DERBY,” she yelled, with caps-lock fully engaged. “IT’S IN THE MIDLANDS!”

And unsurprisingly, she wasn’t wrong – this part of the country has been known as the Midlands (or “Middel Lond”) since the late middle ages; and having driven past it on our way to Leeds (very-definitely in The North) last weekend, I can confirm that Derby is indeed pretty-much “in the middle” of England.

Coincidentally, “in the middle” is also an apt description of England’s performance at the County Ground in Derby today.

Let’s start with their batting performance in the 1st innings, having been inserted by Pakistan, who (correctly) believed that their only hope of victory was to bowl England out cheaply and chase a low total.

The average 1st innings score in an ODI between the ICC Championship sides since 2018 is exactly 250. England’s score today? Just shy of 250 – 243, to be exact – bang in “the midlands” of that grey area on the Ghost chart which indicates a typical score. Not only that, but you’ll rarely see a straighter line on on a chart – England plodded-along at between 4 and 5.5 an over for the whole of their innings, never really slowing down, but never taking off either.

During the innings break, a few people commented that England seemed to have played-out a lot of dots – about 26 overs of them. But this too was totally average. It varies a lot (between 30% and 69%) but England’s average dot percentage in their last 40 ODIs is 50% – so 52% today was… you’ve guessed it… right in the mid-lands!

The batting scorecard was also unusually balanced. Here are England’s batters, with their scores expressed as a percentage of England’s total – all but one in the teens, with no one batter dominating – England’s highest score being Alice Capsey’s 44.

Come the 2nd innings, the wickets were also shared around – 2 for Cross, Bell and Dean, and 3 for Ecclestone – as Pakistan made a decent effort in their chase, although somehow they never quite looked like winning.

Pakistan stayed in touch through the first 30 overs, winning that 20-30-over phase; and our Win-Her Win Predictor actually had them at 58% to win the match at the half-way point in the 2nd innings. I didn’t publish it, because it felt “wrong”, but the numbers are nonetheless what they are – a team that is over 40% of the way towards their target, still with 7 wickets in hand as Pakistan were, wins the game more often than not.

Part of the reason Pakistan were able to maintain their rate was the helpful contribution of a whopping 40 extras (mostly wides) to their total. This definitely was not the mid-lands from England’s perspective – indeed it was closer to Aberdeen! In the last 40 ODIs England have conceded an average of 14 extras per bowling innings, with the recent worst (prior to today) being the 28 they gave up to the West Indies at the World Cup in New Zealand in 2022. Both Bell (7 wides) and Cross (5 wides and 2 no balls) ended up bowing an entire additional over as a result of their prolificacy, with both (unusually in Cross’s case, less unusually in Bell’s) struggling to adapt to the left-right combination after Muneeba Ali came in.

Pakistan didn’t quite have enough fuel in the tank to get to the chequered flag, but this was their best performance of the series. Their issue is that unlike some of the other 2nd-tier sides, they don’t have that one batter – a Hayley Matthews or a Chamari Athapaththu – who will nip them the extra 30-or-40 runs they fell short today. Find her, and they actually could be in business.