New Zealand vs Pakistan 1st T20I: Records broken
After clean sweeping the ODI series 5-0, New Zealand are piling more misery on Pakistan. Today, they defeated Pakistan by 7 wickets with 25 balls to spare in the first T20I at Wellington. After winning the toss, NZ invited Pakistan to bat first and rattled their top order early. The visitors, somehow, managed to set a target of 106, which was easily chased down.
New Zealand faced an early blow when captain, Kane Williamson was ruled out of the fixture due to a niggle. Tim Southee captained the side in his absence. Kiwis ran riot and Pakistan found themselves at 38 for the loss of 6. However, Babar Azam and Hasan Ali held their nerves to spare Pakistan the horror of posting their lowest ever total.
Pakistan had a horror day on the field but batsman, Babar Azam, who was the top scorer for the green brigade, became the second-fastest to score 500 runs in T20Is. He took 15 innings to reach the milestone. In 15 innings, Babar has scored 509 runs, only Aaron Finch has scored more runs (after 15 innings) with 567 to his name.
In today's match, 9 Pakistan batsmen were caught out and only one of them was caught behind the stumps. This, undoubtedly, is rare in T20Is. This exposes the way Pakistan's batsmen struggle with timing the ball. Most of them threw their wicket away attempting audacious shots. The only other wicket to fall was a stumping.
Babar Azam, today, faced 37 consecutive balls without hitting a boundary which is a new unwanted record for Pakistan in T20Is. Previous record was held by Saad Nasim, who faced 32 balls against Australia, without slamming a boundary.
Pakistan's bowlers started the defense of their paltry 106 run target in a brilliant fashion, dismissing the dangerous Martin Guptill early. Glenn Phillips, too, was sent back early giving the visitors some hope after New Zealand were 8 for the loss of two wickets. However, Collin Munro stayed on and took the game away from Pakistan.
Colin Munro, the number one T20Is batsman in the world, has scored 109*, 7, 53, 66, 104, 49* in his last 6 innings. IPL franchises are definitely keeping a tab on this guy. Munro just missed out on one run, which could have made him made him just third batsman in T20Is, after McCullum and Gayle, to register 4 consecutive 50+ scores.
Munro, along with AB de Villiers, boast the highest strike rate of 190 plus in T20s in 2017/2018 for batsmen who have faced a minimum of 100 balls. However, today was Munro's third-slowest innings in T20I cricket. It was a tale on 49s for New Zealand today. Colin Munro's score- 49* Munro-Bruce partnership- 49 Munro-Taylor partnership- 49*
