Tim Robinson and fast bowler Will O’Rourke helped inexperienced New Zealand beat Pakistan by four runs in Lahore, Pakistan, where New Zealand took a 2-1 lead in the five-match series.
Robinson (51) scored his first T20 half-century to take New Zealand to a par-total of 178-7, while Pakistan rested their two frontline fast bowlers Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah.
O’Rourke, who was playing just his second T20, took key wickets of Babar Azam (5) and Saim Ayub (22) in the power play and then dismissed Iftikhar Ahmed (23) in his return spell to restrict Pakistan to 174-8.
O’Rourke troubled Pakistan a lot with economical figures of 3-27, as Pakistan missed the presence of Mohammad Rizwan in the batting order.
New Zealand captain Michael Bracewell said, “The way we have learned game by game is very important, luckily today we were on the right side. It is a big positive for us that we are able to give chance to new players, we put Neesham in those hard overs and he handled it well today.”
Fakhar Zaman scored the highest 61 runs for Pakistan, but when Pakistan needed more runs to win, he was caught out in the deep in the 18th over. Imad Wasim, who has returned from retirement for the T20 World Cup, remained unbeaten by scoring 22 runs in 11 balls, but when Pakistan needed 10 runs in the last two balls to win, he could score only five runs.
Babar said, “3-4 wickets fell in the powerplay but Fakhar’s innings was excellent. We tried to chase with positive intent but could not do it. When you lose back to back wickets, you need some overs but we got derailed in that period.” Pakistan suffered further injury problems when Rizwan and Irfan Khan were ruled out of the rest of the series with hamstring injuries suffered in the third game.
