NZ Ride Twin Tons and Deliver Disciplined Bowling to Secure Big Win against Pakistan

Kolkata: While it may be tempting to label the collapse in Karachi as a typical characteristic of Pakistan cricket, the real highlight is the clever bowling tactics employed by New Zealand. By effectively shutting down scoring opportunities at point and covers, they have forced subcontinent batters into reckless sweeping and reverse sweeping.

They always field well. Hundreds from Will Young and Tom Latham underpinned their batting consistency too. Talking point however is New Zealand’s customised bowling, both fast and slow, that fashioned a handsome 60-run win against Pakistan in the Champions Trophy opener on Wednesday.

A bowler is hardwired to take wickets. But to what extent in one-dayers can be a tricky question. Take Matt Henry, New Zealand’s pace spearhead, who generally likes to bowl full—he had dismantled India with 3/37 in the 2019 semi-final—but stuck to bowling length here. Five-over spell, one maiden, nine runs conceded—New Zealand were off to a perfect start. Then there was Will O’Rourke, Henry’s bowling partner, who started with a wayward outswinger but quickly tightened his lines to first get Saud Shakeel and then Mohammad Rizwan.

Fullish ball at Shakeel and a half tracker to Rizwan but there was more to that second wicket than just the punishable length. Preceding it was a phase where Mitchell Santner put backward point and wide gully so close to each other they could literally shake hands. Rizwan’s range was effectively pruned. But so persuasive can be those instincts that Rizwan couldn’t help but flash at a wide ball bowled to evoke precisely that reaction. Waiting at backward point was Glenn Phillips, who would have fallen short of that ball. But he threw himself to his left, almost reaching above his head and behind his body to pluck the catch one-handed to leave Karachi stunned.

Of lasting impression though was the precision with which New Zealand’s spinners bowled in tandem. Lines could blur between the bowling combinations that Michael Bracewell and Santner forged with Phillips and the pacers, all following the common target of not letting Pakistan get away at any stage of the chase. Salman Agha tried. Back-to-back boundaries off Phillips and Santner before stepping out and smashing Phillips over deep cover for a six, Agha was the only top-five Pakistani batter to have a 100-plus strike rate. But sustaining it across fifty overs was too much to ask of him.

Sensing that, Nathan Smith dug one ball short, forcing Agha to abort his pull but since he was already committed, Bracewell had no problem catching him at midwicket. Babar Azam tried to anchor the innings, first with Rizwan, then with Fakhar Zaman and Agha, caressing some sublime boundaries, bringing the crowd to its feet till Santner cut short the show again. Azam was building up to a sweep but this time Santner held back on his length, which meant it reared up on to Azam, taking a top edge that Kane Williamson gladly accepted at square-leg.

That was probably Williamson’s biggest contribution on a day when he returned a single-digit score in ODIs for the first time since January 2019. But never had two Kiwi batters scored hundreds in the same Champions Trophy as well so New Zealand were good to go. Entwining Will Young and Tom Latham’s contrasting hundreds thus spanned a typical New Zealand resistance that propped them up at 40/2 in the first Powerplay and again at 73/3 after 17 overs. Contrasting partnerships too.

The first stand of 118 runs came in 126 balls. The second partnership—between Latham and a phenomenal Glen Phillips—produced 121 runs in 74 balls. Pakistan went for 113 runs in the last 10 overs, the second-most scored by any team in the last ten overs (41-50) of an innings in the Champions Trophy, behind the 142 by New Zealand against USA in 2004.

Pakistan wanted to chase anyway, considering the dew factor at Karachi. And New Zealand weren’t off to a bright start given Williamson’s early departure. This is where Young impressed, nudging away balls to keep rotating the strike when not finding boundaries to slowly bring the innings out of trouble. Daryl Mitchell was shaping up to play a good innings till he was hurried into playing a pull shot. Enter Latham and New Zealand were once again stabilised, till Phillips hammered 61 off 39 balls to set up a daunting score.

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