Mohammad Hafeez
The third ODI between New Zealand and Pakistan was played in Christchurch. New Zealand won the toss and decided to field. Pakistan opener Ahmed Shehzad was caught off Southee’s bowling by Styris at second slip.
Kamran Akmal who came in next played a few flamboyant shots but soon played one on to the stumps. Younus Khan, who followed Akmal, was caught by Mills at a score of 12 off the bowling of Oram. Then came Misbah Ul Haq who steadied the innings along with Hafeez. The two of them took Pakistan to 150 when Misbah lost his wicket to Mills.
Hafeez and Umar Akmal hit a few flamboyant shots to give Pakistan the kick-start for the death overs. Hafeez who scored 115 off 144 balls departed to delivery by Mills, leaving Pakistan to 202 for the loss of five wickets. Akmal and boom boom Afridi continued their high flown shots. Akmal scored a 44 off 29 deliveries while Shahid Afridi scored 65 off 25 balls.
Afridi infact leveled Brendan McCullum’s record of hitting the fastest half century in New Zealand which came off 19 deliveries.
New Zealand started off their chase pretty well, with both the openers Guptill and How scoring 39 and 24 each. Taylor who came in next did not last too long as he departed before scoring 6 runs off 14 balls. Styris as well as Williamson played good engineers of the innings by taking the innings upto 161 for the loss of four wickets.
Styris who departed at a personal score of 46 runs was followed by Williamson who scored 42 runs off 63 balls. Afridi rotated his bowler’s very well and set his filed according to the bowler’s angles.
New Zealand could not continue to keep up to the asking rate and lost wickets at regular intervals. New Zealand finished their innings at 250 for 9 at the end of 50 overs falling short of Pakistan’s 293 by 43 runs.
Pakistan played much better than the first ODI in Wellington and thus managed to square the series at 1-1. There still remain three matches to be played in the series of six matches. The second ODI in Queenstown was washed off on Wednesday.
The next two matches are at Napier and Hamilton respectively. Both the teams would be hoping to capitalize on the current situation and thus take a lead in the series in the next match.
Tags: 3rd ODI, Christchurch, Cricket, Mohammad Hafeez, New Zealand, ODI Cricket, ODI Series, Pakistan
