Babar Azam’s captaincy innings, Pakistan beat New Zealand by six wickets

Christchurch. Captain Babar Azam’s unbeaten 79 helped Pakistan recover from early setbacks and beat New Zealand by six wickets here on Saturday to continue their winning campaign in the triangular T20 cricket series. Azam faced 53 balls and hit 11 fours in his innings as Pakistan posted 149 for four in 18.2 overs to register their second successive win in the competition. Pakistan had defeated Bangladesh by 21 runs in the first match. New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat but none of their batsmen could convert a good start into a big total.

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New Zealand scored 147 for eight wickets. Only Devon Conway (36 off 35 balls), captain Kane Williamson (31 off 30 balls) and Mark Chapman (32 off 16 balls) could contribute for him. Haris Rauf took three wickets for 28 runs for Pakistan. Apart from them, Mohammad Naseem and Mohammad Nawaz took two wickets each. Pakistan’s innings did not start well. He scored 44 runs in six overs of the power play but in the meantime lost the wickets of Mohammad Rizwan and Shan Masood.

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Rizwan, the hero of victory in the previous match against Bangladesh, scored only four runs in 12 balls and was dismissed leg before by Tim Southee in the fifth over. Masood could not even open the account. Azam, however, held on to one end. He got good support from Shadab Khan (34 off 22 balls) from the other side. Both of them shared a 61-run partnership for the third wicket. Mohammad Nawaz scored 16 runs while Haider Ali contributed 10 runs. For New Zealand, Blair Tickner took two for 42 while Trent Boult (1 for 22) and Saudi (1 for 24) took one wicket each.