1st T20i
Pakistan 171/8 (20/20 ov)
New Zealand 155 (20/20 ov)
Pakistan won by 16 runs
New Zealand threatened Pakistan's total of 171 for 8 through fifties to Colin Munro and Kane Williamson, but the many strands of Pakistan's varied attack came together to truss up the hosts, 17 runs short of their target. The pace trio of Wahab Riaz, Umar Gul and Mohammad Amir created chances, while the spin of Imad Wasim, and Shahid Afridi provided economy. Mohammad Hafeez had earlier provided the base for Pakistan's innings, with 61 from 47 balls from the top of the order.
Wahab was left to defend 20 runs from the final over, with Williamson on strike. He had the batsman caught at deep square leg first ball to effectively seal the match, before taking the final wicket of the innings off the last ball. New Zealand's chase had begun slowly. They never really seemed to have the measure of Pakistan's score, and gave up most ground during the middle overs, when four middle-order wickets were lost for 18 runs.
Amir's part in his international return was relatively low-key, but full of frustration. He had Williamson dropped off his bowling in the fourth over, then had another straightforward catch spilled towards the end of the match. He eventually took the wicket of Matt Henry in the penultimate over to finish with figures of 1 for 31 from four overs. Wahab, Gul and Afridi took two wickets apiece, while Wasim returned 1 for 18 from his full quota.
Williamson had made a stuttering start to his innings, as Pakistan introduced spin as early as the second over - most likely to upset Martin Guptill's rhythm in the early overs. Williamson was on two from six balls when he ran Guptill out in the second over, and then continued to progress slowly. He was 10 from 20 balls at one stage, and his first boundary came off the 36th ball he faced - as late as the 12th over.
In between Colin Munro had blasted 56 off 27 balls and got out. He sent six balls over the rope - memorably uppercutting Gul over third man in a fifth over that yielded 23 runs - as he reeled in New Zealand's required rate. His departure heralded a middle-order collapse. Corey Anderson, Luke Ronchi, Grant Elliott and Mitchell Santner all fell in single figures.
Williamson attempted to resurrect the innings from 109 for 6 after 15 overs, but continued to lose partners just as he discovered fluency. He struck smart, square boundaries to keep his side alive, but was eventually out for 70 off 60 balls.
Perhaps wary of being fatally seduced by the size of the Eden Park boundaries, Hafeez saw out the first over, scoreless, then moved to five off ten balls before he became more ambitious. A lap-scoop off Trent Boult and a slap over the covers next ball moved him into a higher gear, before he plundered 18 runs off Corey Anderson's first international over in six months, hitting three fours and a six on the off side.
That over helped lift Pakistan to 62 for 1 at the end of the Powerplay. Hafeez progressed at a more even pace when the field relaxed and New Zealand applied their spinners in tandem. Debutant legbreak bowler Todd Astle was the more expensive of the pair, as Hafeez and Shoib Malik lifted him over the rope in a three-over spell that cost 28. Having had Soahib Maqsood stumped first ball, then also taking the wicket of Malik, Santner didn't give away a boundary in his four overs, which conceded just 14.
Hafeez mined the gaps in the outfield to near fifty, which he reached off 36 balls. He freed his arms again when pace returned to the attack, sending Boult over the covers again, then swatting a Milne bouncer to the wide long-on fence, but holed out at deep square leg off Milne's next ball.
Shahid Afridi burned typically brightly for a typically brief period of time. He rocked the 16th over - bowled by Matt Henry - cracking two sixes and two fours in a span of four balls, but was out soon after. Having dropped a catch off Umar Akmal earlier, Kane Williamson held on to the chance from Afridi, leaving the batsman with 23 from 8 balls.
Having been 147 off 5 after 17 overs, Pakistan might have hoped for total in excess of 180, but good death bowling from Adam Milne and Henry in the two final overs thwarted those ambitions. Imad Wasim contributed a valuable 18 from 9 balls.
2nd T20i
Pakistan 168/7 (20/20 ov)
New Zealand 171/0 (17.4/20 ov)
New Zealand won by 10 wickets (with 14 balls remaining)
Kane Williamson and Martin Guptill - New Zealand's two form batsmen - combined in a clinical display of poise and timing, to gun down Pakistan's 168 for 7 inside eighteen overs in Hamilton. Their 171-run stand was the highest ever for T20Is, let alone for opening pairs. The ten-wicket victory evened the series in emphatic fashion. Guptill left the field with 87 to his name, and Williamson with a personal best of 72 - both striking at 150.
Williamson had been the early aggressor, flitting about his crease to make use of errant lines from the Pakistan bowlers. He slapped Mohammad Amir through the leg side for four in the second over, then cracked three fours through point off Imad Wasim soon after. With the positioning of the pitch making the eastern square boundary only 52 metres, Williamson continued to move around his crease to target that - most memorably lap-scooping Amir to the fine-leg fence in the fifth over. Williamson had New Zealand's run rate hurtling at 10 an over inside the Powerplay, and it did not dip too far below that thereafter.
Guptill was more still at the crease, hitting a flat six off Umar Gul in the first over of the chase, but largely batting in Williamson's slipstream before taking flight through the middle overs. He struck consecutive fours, either side of the wicket, off Amir in the 13th over, and successive sixes off Shahid Afridi in the 15th. He struck four sixes and nine fours in his 58-ball innings. Williamson didn't clear the rope, but hit 11 fours.
Pakistan had lost early wickets and made a stalling start before Shoaib Malik's measured 39 and Umar Akmal's violent 56 not out from 27 balls seemed to have revived their chances in the match. New Zealand's batting was excellent, but Pakistan's bowlers perhaps had their thoughts scrambled by the asymmetrical dimensions of the field - one square boundary more than 20 metres shorter than the other.
Amir had a particularly poor outing, leaking 34 from his 3 overs, but no one in the Pakistan attack fared well. Wahab Riaz went at 10 an over, and the usually-miserly Imad Wasim at 8. Such was the adaptability of New Zealand's batting, that they were not slowed by Shahid Afridi's rifling through the attack, nor the several different fields he employed through the innings.
Mitchell McClenaghan was the best of New Zealand's bowlers, delivering a tight line, largely on off stump, and mixing up his pace and lengths intelligently. He had conceded only eight runs from his first three overs, but those figures were soured somewhat by Akmal's late charge, during which the batsman struck two fours and a six in three balls. McClenaghan did take valuable wickets however, having bowled Malik with a yorker in his third over, then having Wasim top-edging a bouncer to fine leg in the penultimate over of the innings.
Earlier, Pakistan had been 34 for 2 after 6.1 overs before Malik arrived to ease the innings into motion, beginning with singles to third man, then a spate of fours to that short boundary. His 63-run fourth-wicket stand with Umar Akmal was the most substantial of the innings.
Akmal blasted consecutive sixes off Mitchell Santner to the short leg-side boundary early in his innings, but he wasn't shy of taking on the longer boundary either. He batted busily through the middle overs, and memorably launched Grant Elliott into the adjacent road in the 16th over, with a 103-metre hit over cow corner. Clean striking in McClenaghan's final over moved him to 50 off 22 balls - the second fastest T20 half-century for Pakistan just one ball behind his own record. He lost partners in quick succession through those late overs, but appeared to have seen Pakistan through to a good score, given their successful defence of 171 two evenings prior.
3rd T20i
New Zealand 196/5 (20/20 ov)
Pakistan 101 (16.1/20 ov)
New Zealand won by 95 runs
Corey Anderson limped off the field with 15 overs of the third T20 still remaining, but by then he had done enough to tilt the match, and the series, decisively New Zealand's way. He had smashed an unbeaten 42-ball 82 to power New Zealand to a total of 196, and by the end of his second over, when he pulled up with cramps, had picked up two wickets to help reduce Pakistan to 36 for 4.
A good start is critical in a chase of such magnitude, and Pakistan did not make one. Failing to get on top of a short ball from Trent Boult, Mohammad Hafeez sliced a high catch into the point region. In the next over, Ahmed Shehzad picked out deep square leg while looking to pull Anderson, before Mohammad Rizwan ran himself out hurtling needlessly from his crease. Shoaib Malik struck three sweetly-timed fours off Boult, but the required rate brought out a miscued slog in the next over; Anderson had his second, and New Zealand were firmly on the road to victory.
In the end, Anderson was not required to come back onto the field as New Zealand wrapped up the match with close to four overs still remaining. Only two Pakistan batsmen reached double figures as they only just scraped past the 100 mark.
This was surely not the finish Pakistan had envisioned when Shahid Afridi chose to bowl after winning the toss. But the portents were clear right from the first ball of the match, which Martin Guptill flat-batted to the cover boundary. Carrying on from where he left off in Hamilton, Guptill tore into Anwar Ali, who replaced Umar Gul in Pakistan's seam attack, spanking him for another four and a six off the last two balls of the first over.
With Guptill in an equally punishing mood against Imad Wasim's hitherto unhittable left-arm spin, New Zealand reached the half-century mark as early as the start of the fifth over. They could have gotten there earlier, had more if not for Mohammad Amir's efforts to tie up Kane Williamson at the other end, bowling with pace and giving him no room.
Guptill was looking unstoppable until Afridi brought himself on and pulled things back with his skiddy topspinners from just back of a length. He forced Guptill to miscue a slog-sweep and hole out, and gave away only seven runs from his first two overs. In between, a brilliant piece of fielding from Rizwan at midwicket ran out Colin Munro at the non-striker's end.
Not long after, Williamson had holed out off Wahab Riaz, and Ross Taylor had retired hurt with a side strain. But New Zealand still had the momentum, with Anderson already underway with two fours and a six off his first twelve balls.
Anderson was not at his most fluent, but his method of clearing his front leg to make swinging room brought him rich dividends whenever anything was pitched in his hitting zone. All four of his sixes flew over the arc between deep midwicket and long-on, with those two fielders made to look like spectators.
With the leg-side boundary packed and a sweeper square on the off-side, third man was usually inside the circle. This gave Pakistan's seamers little margin for error when they tried to fire in the yorker, as Anderson made room, freed his arms, and carved the ball over or wide of that fielder for four of his six fours, with Wahab, who went for 43 in his four overs, receiving special attention for this form of punishment.
No comments:
Post a Comment