Pakistan march to victory against New Zealand

Haris Rauf bowled with precision and pace to bamboozle New Zealand batters as he claimed four wickets and beat the Kiwis by 88 runs as Pakistan restricted the Kiwis to 94-10 in pursuit of 183 runs in the first T20I of the five match rubber at the Gaddafi Stadium on Friday night.

The New Zealand never looked to chase the daunting total as they lost three wickets for 29 runs in the first five overs. Mark Chapman 34 (27), Tom Latham 20 (24) and James Neesham 15 (8) were the only batters to reach the double-figures for the Kiwis as no other Kiwi batter could put up resistance and challenge the target set by Pakistan. Chapman took a liking to Shadab Khan and hit him for 14 runs before he fell off a miscued edge in the 12th over and team total at 75-5.

Player of the Match, Haris Rauf was the destroyer-in-chief for Pakistan who decimated the New Zealand batting line-up in a fabulous display of fast bowling as he claimed 4-17 in 3.3 overs as the New Zealand innings folded in the 16th over. Imad Wasim bagged two precious wickets for two runs in the only over he bowled and almost claimed a second hat-trick of the match after Matt Henry. Shaheen Shah Afridi, Zaman Khan, Shadab Khan and Faheem Ashraf shared one wicket each from the booty as the bowlers made hay with poor batting from the Kiwis.

Earlier, Pakistan set a daunting target of 183 with gritty knocks from Saim Ayub and Fakhar Zaman in the first T20I against New Zealand at the Gaddafi stadium.

Saim Ayub played a scintillating knock of 47 runs off 28 balls before he was run out off a darting direct throw from Daryl Mitchell in the 12th over of the Pakistan innings. Saim knocked a 79 runs partnership with Fakhar Zaman off 42 balls for the third wicket and it laid the foundation of a challenging total of 182-10. Fakhar Zaman also hit 47 runs off 34 balls in the 14th over for 131-6. All-rounders Faheem Ashraf 22 (16) and Imad Wasim 16 (13) played useful knocks while Haris Rauf also hit 11 runs to help the team reach a commanding total. The New Zealanders conceded 16 runs in extras.

Babar Azam, playing his 100th T20I, fell cheaply for 9 runs off 8 balls while his opening partner Mohammad Rizwan 8 off 10 balls could also not contribute big with the bat as the first wicket fell on 14-1 while Babar was back in the fifth over with the total at 30-2.

Interestingly Pakistan scored 52 runs in the first and the last 6 overs of their innings but lost four wickets in the last 6 overs as compared with the two in the first 6 overs.

Matt Henry was the most successful bowler of the Kiwis who claimed a hat-trick when he claimed the scalp of Shaheen Shah Afridi in the 18th over who tried to loft him over the long on boundary for a six but an excellent catch between Mitchell and Bowes. Mitchell had parried the ball to Bowes before falling over the boundary line and the re-plays showed that the catch was clean. Earlier, Henry had claimed the wickets of Shadab Khan and Iftikhar Ahmed on the last two balls of his third of the quota and 13th of the Pakistan innings.

Adam Milne was the other successful bowler for the Kiwis who claimed the prized scalps of Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan in his first two overs and returned the match figures of 2-52 in four overs. Ben Lister also claimed two wickets in the last over of the innings as he conceded two wickets for 30 runs in 3.5 overs. Ish Sodhi and James Neesham claimed one wicket each for 34 and 18 runs while Rachin Ravindra bowled one for 9 runs without success.

Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat first during the first match of the five-match series.
Pakistan scored 52-2 in the first power-play with Saim Ayub batting on 19 off 9 balls while Fakhar Zaman was unbeaten on 13 off 11 runs.

Chairman PCB Management Committee Najam Sethi presented commemorative jersey to Captain Babar Azam on reaching 100 T20Is while former fast bowling ace Umar Gul gave the commemorative jersey to Shadab Khan on becoming the first Pakistani make cricketer to bag 100 T20I wickets for the country.