NEW YORK: Canada’s inexperienced batters crumbled against pace for yet another low score at the Twenty20 World Cup as Pakistan finally registered their first win Tuesday.
The four-pronged Pakistan pace attack, led by Mohammad Amir’s impeccable figures of 2-13, clipped Canada for 106-7 with only opening batter Aaron Johnson showing aggression in his 44-ball knock of 52.
Mohammad Rizwan’s unbeaten half-century (53 not out) anchored Pakistan, which lost to rival India on Sunday, to 107-3 in 17.3 overs for a commanding seven-wicket win.
“Good for us, we needed this win,” Pakistan skipper Babar Azam said. “We started well with the bowling, in the first six overs (and) we know we had to be up to the mark.”
Johnson sent early tremors in Pakistan’s camp with his back-to-back boundaries off Shaheen Shah Afridi’s first two balls of the match after Babar won the toss and elected to field.
But Amir, who came out of retirement for the World Cup, hit the right areas straight away and buckled the batters as wickets continued to fall around Johnson.
Johnson, who was dropped on 44 by Fakhar Zaman at mid-wicket, hit four boundaries and brought up his half-century with his fourth six before he too was finally undone by Naseem Shah in the 14th over.
Fast bowler Haris Rauf became the third quickest bowler to complete 100 wickets in T20 internationals when he had Shreyas Movva (2) caught behind and then found the outside edge of Ravinderpal Singh’s bat in the same over to finish with 2-26.
“Definitely, it was a bit disappointing,” Pakistan-born Canada skipper Saad Bin Zafar said. “We wanted to play a positive brand of cricket and I think the wicket was not very helpful. It was difficult to bat early on and not a good toss to lose. We were about 25 to 30 runs short.”
Pakistan’s experiment with Saim Ayub as an opener in the World Cup for the first time didn’t work out as the left-hander struggled to score 6 off 12 balls before he edged Dillon Heyliger (2-18) to wicketkeeper inside the batting power play.
Rizwan and Babar (33) then had a 63-run stand before the Pakistan skipper banged his bat on the wicket in anger when he tried to guide Heyliger to third man but couldn’t beat the wicketkeeper as Rizwan’s run-a-ball half-century saw Pakistan over the line.
Pakistan, the 2022 runner-up, needs to beat Ireland in their last game and also hope co-host US lose both their remaining games against India and Ireland to have a chance of advancing on superior net run-rate.
The United States made a history by beating Pakistan in the Super Over in Dallas after they had defeated Canada in a high-scoring opening game of the tournament they are jointly co-hosting with the West Indies.
Pakistan finally get first win at T20 World Cup, beat Canada by 7 wickets
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Pakistan finally get first win at T20 World Cup, beat Canada by 7 wickets
- “Good for us, we needed this win,” Pakistan skipper Babar Azam said
- Amir, who came out of retirement for the World Cup, hit the right areas straight away and buckled the batters as wickets continued to fall around Johnson
Samson and Bumrah star as India beat NZ to retain T20 World Cup title
- India become first team to win T20 World Cup three times
- New Zealand fall short of maiden World Cup
AHMEDABAD: India became the first team to retain the men’s Twenty20 World Cup title after handing out a 96-run demolition of New Zealand in the final at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday.
India also became the first team to lift the title three times, while New Zealand’s wait for a maiden white-ball World Cup continues.
The victory will taste particularly sweet for India since it came at a venue where they were beaten by Australia in the final of the 50-overs World Cup three years ago.
Put in to bat, India capitalized on a 98-run opening stand between Sanju Samson (89) and Abhishek Sharma (52) to rack up 255-5.
Number three Ishan Kishan smashed 54 but James Neesham bowled a three-wicket over to apply the brakes on India’s scoring rate toward the end of the innings.
Chasing such a daunting target, New Zealand could not recover from a top-order collapse and were all out for 159 in 19 overs despite defiant knocks by Tim Seifert (52) and Mitchell Santner (43).
“This feels extremely special because I’ve played one final in my home venue but couldn’t win that one, but today I won,” said India pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah, whose 4-15 fetched him player of the match award.
“I knew the wicket was a flat one so had to use all my experience.”
Samson, who smashed his third successive 80-plus knock, was adjudged player of the tournament.
Earlier, wary of having to bowl with a hard-to-grip, dew-soaked ball later in the evening, New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner elected to field.
New Zealand used four different bowlers in the first four overs but could not stop India from milking 92 without losing a wicket after the six powerplay overs.
BATTING CARNAGE
Rachin Ravindra dismissed Abhishek with his first ball to bring relief to the New Zealand camp, ending the opener’s 21-ball knock that included three sixes.
With Samson continuing in the same vein and Kishan joining him in a batting carnage, there was hardly any respite for New Zealand.
Both found boundaries with remarkable regularity as India reached the 200-mark in the 15th over.
Samson, who smacked Ravindra for three sixes in a row, was finally caught in the deep off James Neesham, who also removed Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav in a three-wicket over.
India could not maintain the tempo after the departures of their set batters and yet comfortably breached the 250-mark.
New Zealand’s top order wilted early in their chase and they could never really recover after being reduced to 47-3 inside five overs. Finn Allen, who smashed a 33-ball hundred in the semifinal against South Africa, got a reprieve when Shivam Dube dropped him in the first over from Arshdeep Singh. Allen could not capitalize on it though, and holed out against spinner Axar Patel in the third over. Bumrah dismissed Ravindra with his first delivery and Axar got rid of Glenn Phillips to rattle New Zealand.
Stymied by lack of partnerships and faced with a spiralling required run-rate, Seifert had to go for the jugular but it did not pay off.
Spinner Varun Chakravarthy had Seifert caught in the deep as New Zealand lost the top half of their batting for 72 to effectively drop out of the hunt. Santner, dropped on 26, went on to make 43 but India had the match in the bag by then. (Reporting by Amlan Chakraborty in Ahmedabad; Editing by David Holmes and Toby Davis)
