England Lions secure tense two-wicket win over UAE XI

Ben Foakes steered England Lions to a tense two-wicket win over a United Arab Emirates XI in their last warm-up match before the Twenty20 series against Pakistan A.

Foakes scored 49 from 48 balls as the Lions made hard work of chasing their 133-run target, with Nottinghamshire's Jake Ball hitting a boundary off the last ball to win the game.

Earlier, Ball and Jamie Overton took two wickets each as the Lions restricted the UAE XI to 132 for six.

The Lions included four players from England's team that recently beat Pakistan 3-0 in their T20I series - captain James Vince, Sam Billings, Stephen Parry and Reece Topley.

Topley (1-28) took the new ball and struck with his fourth ball, while Ball (2-22) also struck in his first over.

Overton (2-25) dismissed Rameez Shahzad gloving a hook early on, and then had the mainstay of the hosts' innings, Ghulam Shabbir (56), out caught at long-on by Billings.

Ball returned to bamboozle Mohd Usman with a slower ball, taking a simple return catch as the Lions limited their opponents to a modest total.

But Foakes came to the crease with the side tottering at 25-3, with England's Vince out for a golden duck and Billings run out.

He found solid support from Liam Dawson (20 off 21), and Ross Whiteley (12 off nine), who hit the only six of the innings, but neither could stay for the duration.

With only five runs needed from the final over, Foakes hit a boundary first ball to take the Lions to the brink of victory but was furious with himself when he holed out to long on two balls later to deny himself a fifty and the winnings runs.

The tension built as Overton missed the fourth ball of the over, but he managed a single to midwicket to bring the scores level with one ball remaining, and Ball belted it over mid-off to secure the win.

The Lions next face Pakistan A in a five-match T20 series which starts on Monday.