A valiant effort with the bat from Mohammad Hafeez was not enough for the touring Pakistan side as an unbeaten partnership for the second wicket between Kane Williamson and Tim Seifert guided Blackcaps to an unassailable 2-0 lead in Hamilton.
Chasing a modest target of 164 at the Seddon Park, the Blackcaps were off to a rapid start as Martin Guptill looked like turning back the clock to the time when he was batting at his prime and big shots were coming off his bat sweetly. He started to time the ball brilliantly from the second over and took 12 runs off Haris Rauf through a big six and a boundary. He hit another big one off Faheem Ashraf in his first over but the all-rounder was smart enough to change the pace of the ball and flummoxed Guptill into playing the pull shot too early.
The next man in was the returning skipper Kane Williamson who returned after becoming a father and brought his biggest skill - calmness - on the field for the home side.
On the other hand, Tim Seifert was going all guns blazing as the Kiwis reached a middling total of 45/1 at the end of the powerplay.
The tourists would have hoped for a controlled phase of play after the field restrictions were lifted but Seifert had other plans in his mind. He hit Wahab Riaz for three sixes and whatever control Shadab Khan-led side had till that moment was gone in a jiffy. With 19 runs off the seventh over, Kiwis were up and running and the run rate came back under control.
They needed both Williamson and Siefert to not throw their wickets away and they were not in any mood to do so. Williamson was batting in his usual touch and all the balls he could afford to guide towards the third man boundary were guided for four from the position just under his eyes, in his signatory ways.
Williamson reached his fifty in 37 balls, although he was slowed down for a brief period of time after reaching 49 runs with the bat. Seifert had no mercy on the Pakistani bowlers and kept on plundering them when loose balls were bowled as he reached his second consecutive fifty, in just 32 balls. His onslaught only got better as he kept on finding boundaries and in the end, the hosts were proven too good for the touring Pakistan team and the target was achieved in the last over with unbelievable ease.
Earlier, Pakistan captain Shadab Khan won the toss and elected to bat first and utilise the good pitch at Seddon Park. Pakistan openers Mohammed Rizwan and Haider Ali started with a bang and the famous pair of Tim Southee and Trent Boult were attacked in the first two overs. But soon enough, they were given a reality check by the Kiwi new ball pair and they found movement in the air to check the touring batsmen.
Haider Ali was the first man to go after he tried to take on Southee and the pacer held on to his nerve and backed his skills to hit the length that troubled Ali who was attempting to go over the top. The next man in, Abdullah Shafique, could not match the skills of the veteran bowler to ride the bounce Southee was generating and ended up getting out in a much embarrassing fashion.
Southee was at the top of his rhythm and he started to swing the ball and had Test match-like field placings with slips and gully. Williamson persisted with Southee with a huge amount of swing he was able to extract and the move paid dividends as Rizwan edged one through to the keeper Seifert while attempting to drive an away-going delivery of Southee that was reminiscent of Kiwis’ bowling in Test cricket.
Mohammad Hafeez, who has been growing like an old wine (in T20s), came to bat at the number four position and got off to a decent start with two back to back boundaries of Kyle Jamieson. He continued his boundary hitting streak against Scott Kuggeleijn and was keeping Pakistan in the game, albeit wickets had fallen at the other end.
The old nemesis of Pakistani batsmen returned today as well as James Neesham got the better of Shadab Khan with a ball that bounced more than Pakistan’s skipper may have expected. Wickets kept tumbling at the other end, but an unfazed Hafeez was on the money and was keeping Pakistan in pursuit of a big score in Hamilton.
Khushdil Shah who came in to bat at the number six position found it extremely tough to get going and was putting a lot of pressure on Hafeez to go for big shots as well as keeping his wicket intact with no better batsmen remaining in the pavilion to rescue the side.
In the process of a masterful T20I inning, Hafeez surpassed Shoaib Malik to become the best Pakistan batsman in the shortest format. He stamped his authority by depositing Kuggleijn for two back-to-back sixes to reach a much-deserved fifty that Pakistan badly needed to stay in the contest.
There was no stopping Hafeez as every form of bowling, from the leg-spin of Ish Sodhi to left-arm pace of Trent Boult, was taken to the cleaners. He needed 18 runs in the last over of the innings to reach his hundred. The over was bowled by Jamieson and Hafeez got stuck into the young man, but could not quite complete a century he richly deserved. But he had single-handedly taken Pakistan to a total which the bowlers could have hoped of defending from a situation of doom and gloom for the tourists earlier in the match.
Pakistan were without Babar Azam for the T20I series and the effect was telling on the level of performance of the Pakistan team as New Zealand took full toll of their problems and shortcoming and handed out a massive drubbing in the format where Pakistan was expected to put up the toughest fight.
Powered by Froala Editor