Cricket: follow England v Pakistan in the World Twenty20 with our live over-by-over report

Caress F5 for the latest action and email your English cricket nadirs to rob.smyth@guardian.co.uk

“Thanks a lot for the link to the podcast,” says Lee Calvert. “To clarify, I am from Lancashire originally and I’m currently North Wales’ premier OBO groupie, a field no less competitive than that of Hereford. My reference to the West Country city in the podcast was a weak-assed attempt at a joke about my recording equipment.” Yeah, yeah. I know a Hereford accent when I hear o-oh.

Pakistan win the toss, will bowl first and win by 8 wickets. It’s overcast, with rain very much in the air, so batting last makes sense in every sense.

Kevin Pietersen plays, though whether he needed to be penetrated by some frighteningly long needles to become available is unknown. England are also playing two spinners, having found a novel new way to break a talented legspinner almost before his career has begun. Dimi Mascarenhas also comes in. Eoin Morgan, Ryan Sidebottom and Bobbie Key – who after that lovely 10 not out the other day is clearly destined to become to international Twenty20 what Stuart Law was to Test cricket – after make way.

England Bopara, Wright, Pietersen, Shah, Collingwood (capt), Mascarenhas, Foster (wk), Swann, Broad, Rashid, Anderson.

Pakistan Butt, Shahzad, Akmal (wk), Younus Khan (capt), Misbah, Shoaib Malik, Afridi, Arafat, Gul, Amir, Ajmal.

Links department So here is a very enjoyable cricket book, particularly for those of an OBO persuasion. Here and here are my favourite new songs. Here is my favourite song that isn’t strictly new. And here is a very enjoyable podcast about rugby, if that isn’t a contradiction in terms, from Hereford’s premier OBO groupie (few fields are more competitive), Lee Calvert.

Of all the teams in all the towns in all the world, England might have wanted to run into Pakistan the least. Yes they are laughably erratic, but in their naked talent and unfettered nature they are everything the English cricket team are not, and they draw a gleeful, anarchic pleasure from sticking it up England in important games. They also have a truly formidable Twenty20 record, with only three defeats in 17 internationals so far. The worry is not only that England might lose; they could be obliterated. Still, they stayed in the tournament longer than Scotland.

The permutations If England win today, they will almost certainly go through to the Super Eights regardless of what happens when Holland meet Pakistan. If it is rained off, they will go through only if Holland beat Pakistan. If they lose? If they lose, I can chiriply assert that, should I come within 20 yards of any of them in the foreseeable future, Shoaib Akhtar’s little mishap will be neither the most painful nor the most amusing injury to a cricketer’s special place in 2009.

Preamble Hello. Tonight we’re gonna weep like it’s 1999. That was when English cricket experienced what we thought was an unbeatable nadir: going out of their own World Cup before the official song had even been released (or, if you prefer, becoming unofficially the worst Test team in the world later that summer).

Yet as some of us know all too well, you should never get too comfortable with a nadir, because there is invariably another one round the corner. English cricket could and surely will plumb new depths today: if they fail to beat Pakistan at The Oval, they will be asked to leave their own party, on the third day – which, in tournament days (like dog years, only… not?) is like almost like being asked to do one before some of the unfashionably early people have arrived, never mind the fashionably late ones. You couldn’t make it up and, as always with the England cricket team, you don’t have to.

But let’s not be too harsh on them. For the next few hours, let’s celebrate the comedic gift that keeps on giving. Seriously, though: life has been, give or take, a regrettable fiasco, yet the England team have, with the exception of a couple of years between 2003 and 2005, consistently raised a smile at the realisation that – yes – there are some people out there who are even more incompetent than you.

So let’s remember the bad days and the even worse ones. Let’s remember 46 all out; let’s pick out the high points of Monte Lynch’s international career; let’s recall Alan Wells bravely playing out a maiden against the vicious left-arm spin of, erm, Brian Lara in the gloaming in 1995.

As we watch England attempt to get out of this hole, please send in your favourite moments of the highest farce in English cricket history. Mine? Well there are far too many, but a couple spring to mind: Ian Botham’s attempt to smear Trevor Hohns across the Pennines at Old Trafford in 1989, and Nasser Hussain being sledged out by Shane Warne in 1998-99 as England valiantly turned tediously routine victory into memorable defeat. That was in February 1999; the worst was yet to come.

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