Woakes happy to contribute to winning team

England

England seamer Chris Woakes says he is delighted that he could contribute to the Three Lions' victory in the third ODI against Pakistan in Sharjah on Wednesday as they went two-one up in the series with one match left to play.

Woakes was the pick of a very disciplined performance by the England bowlers as he recorded figures of four for 40 as they restricted the Asian side to 208 all out.

James Taylor then scored 67 not out as the tourists eased to six-wicket victory which means they cannot now lose the four-match series.

The 25 year-old Warwickshire bowler said: "I'm obviously delighted. To go two-one up in the series is the main thing, but to pick up wickets as well was a nice touch and back-to-back four-fers, it was a long time coming.

"It's nice to get them, but as I said the win was the most important thing. We're two-one up in the series now; hopefully we can go and finish the job in Dubai on Friday."

Asked how the bowlers kept Pakistan to such a low total, Woakes said they needed to use a lot of variations as the surface was on the slow side.

He continued: "It didn't really bounce very much and was quite slow and turgid, but the guys bowled well on it. We bowled cutters and carried the pace really well and got a good squeeze on in the middle, picked up the wickets in clusters.

"The way the guys batted and knocked off that chase made it look easy, so credit to them as well it was a fantastic chase."

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