SHARJAH: Leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed mystified United Arab Emirates batters with a career-best return of 4-9 as Pakistan sealed its place in the final of the T20 tri-series with a 31-run victory Thursday.
Fakhar Zaman tuned up for next week’s Asia Cup with an unbeaten 77 off 44 balls — the left-hander’s first T20 half-century after 15 games — and propelled Pakistan to 171-5 against some sloppy UAE fielding after captain Salman Ali Agha won the toss and elected to field.
Ahmed, playing his first game of the series, then baffled UAE top-order batters with his carrom balls and googlies before restricting them to 140-7 and the trend of teams successfully defending the totals continued for fifth successive game.
Afghanistan, which already has four points, will take on UAE in the last league game Friday before meeting Pakistan in the final Sunday.
UAE top-order batters couldn’t decode Ahmed’s mystery spin once he came onto bowl inside the batting powerplay. Captain Mohammad Waseem (19) failed to read the carrom ball and sliced an easy catch at point in Ahmed’s second over.
Alishan Sharafu, who was scrappy in the field earlier on, and Ethan D’Souza struggled to set up the momentum before D’Souza holed out at deep square leg in the 11th over after scoring 9 off 14 balls.
Ahmed then returned for another two brilliant overs and picked up the wickets of Asif Khan and Rahul Chopra in space of three balls before wrapping up a brilliant spell with the wicket of Harshit Kaushik off his final ball as UAE slipped to 102-5 in 15 overs.
Opening batter Sharafu’s countercharge came a bit too late for UAE as he made 68 off 51 balls before Agha grabbed a catch over his head at mid-off of Shaheen Shah Afridi’s off-cutter.
Earlier, Zaman and Mohammad Nawaz (37 not out) revived Pakistan with its highest-ever sixth wicket stand in T20 international and added 91 runs off the final 51 balls.
But both batters survived chances against an unlucky left-arm spinner Haider Ali (2-17) when they were dropped in the outfield off successive balls before cutting loose in the final two overs which fetched Pakistan 42 runs.
Nawaz smacked fast bowler Junaid Siddique (1-52) for three successive fours in the penultimate over before lofting the pacer for a six over cover boundary in a 20-run 19th over.
Zaman was dropped by Sharafu on 39 at mid-off before another misfield by him brought 50 for the batter. Zaman capped Pakistan’s perfect recovery with five consecutive fours in Mohammad Jawadullah’s last over that included two lap shots over the head of wicketkeeper and two edges flying to third boundary.
Pakistan continued to follow its new template of showing aggression in the batting powerplay under new head coach Mike Hesson and reached 50-3.
But Ali snapped two more quick wickets of Mohammad Haris (14) and Hasan Nawaz (4) and Pakistan struggled to 80-5 in the 12th over before Zaman and left-hander Nawaz smacked eight boundaries and a six of the final 10 balls.
