New Zealand and Pakistan will meet again in Napier on Tuesday in what will be the final competitive outing for both sides ahead of February’s World Cup, which is scheduled to start in just two weeks time.
The first match of the two game series between the sides, ended in a comfortable seven wicket win for the home side at the Westpac Stadium in Wellington.
The Black Caps who came into the match off of the back of a seven match ODI series against Sri Lanka, which they had won by 4-2, looked razor sharp. By contrast, the tourists, with the exception of the veteran Shahid Afridi, looked exactly what they, a team rusty with inactivity.
The Wellington fixture was the first match that Pakistan had played outside Asia in the past 12 months, and they found a bouncy wicket difficult to come to terms with.
History suggest that the Black Caps will clinch the series at McLean Park on Tuesday, just two of Pakistan’s last 11 ODI have seen them triumph, and in five previous outings at the venue, the tourists have managed just a solitary victory.
While the tourists will have benefited from the match in Wellington, they will still be dependant on skipper Misbah to provide most of the runs and the backbone to the innings. Apart from a solid innings from the captain and a typical belligerent effort late on by Afridi, the rest of the order was woefully out of sorts in the first ODI.
The 37-year-old Younis Khan who has posted just two half centuries in his last 19 ODI’s took 26 balls to score nine, while Umar Akmal and Sarfraz Ahmed gave their wickets away with poor shot selection.
On the plus side, the giant quick bowler Irfan, troubled all the home side’s batsmen with his pace and bounce. No mean feat against a batting order that has been in fine form recently, and were playing in familiar conditions. The visitors will just be looking for a bit more control from a player who could prove to be one of the quickest and most troublesome bowlers in the forthcoming World Cup.