KANDY - - New Zealand smashed Pakistan with huge margin of 110 runs in the 13th match of Group A. Pakistan batsman seemed like a wall of sand in front of accurate bowling and aggressive field placing of Kiwi’s.
Opening bowling attack of Kyle Mills and Tim Southee just blown away Pakistan top-order. Muhammad Hafeez (5), Ahmed Shahzad (10), Kamran Akmal (8) and Younis Khan (0) all have gone back to pavilion on just 23 on the board in eighth over. Tim Southee and Kyle Mills shared two wickets each in their opening spells.
Pakistan never recovered after early collapse despite a few glimpses of form by Shahid Afridi (17) but it didn’t last long. Umar Akmal (38) also had few good moments but failed against the effective strategy of Kiwi bowlers falling to a trap set by Nathan McCullum and company.
Abdul Razzaq (62) and Umar Gul (34) played effective knocks but it was just to delay the inevitable ultimately falling to 192 in 41.4 overs.
Earlier, New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat first. Shoaib Akhtar hit the stumps of Brendon McCullum in the very first over. Then Umar Gul struck to get rid of Jamie How.
But Ross Taylor smashed a blazing ton on his birthday and led New Zealand to mighty 302 runs. In the last 20 overs New Zealand scored 183 runs and more than 75% of it smashed in last ten overs. In these killing last moments Nathan McCullum and Jacob Oram also opened their arms adding misery to Pakistan bowlers’ poor bowling.
Ross Taylor was named man of the match for his winning innings of 131 runs off 124 balls.
Pakistan slipped to second position with their first loss of the World Cup; while New Zealand stepped up three positions and ended on the top of the ladder.
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