A man that takes 5 wickets in an ODI game is a man in form. The
Pakistan cricket team couldn’t face the fury of Kiwi pacer Trent Boult as he desecrated
their batting order with his blaze. It didn’t begin there, however, as New
Zealand were the ones that batted first at the University Oval at Dunedin.
On a difficult pitch, the Kiwi batters somehow managed to
squeeze their score over 200 with the help of an astute innings from Kane
Williamson. The captain scored 73 from 101 balls on a track where the ball
stuck on the pitch like glue.
Williamson was well supported by Martin Guptill’s 45, Ross Taylor’s
52 and Tom Latham’s run-a-ball 35. In the end, the New Zealanders put up a very
healthy score of 257 for Pakistan to fight for.
In the bowling department, Rumman Raees and Hasan Ali took 3
wickets each, but were on the expensive side as they gave away more than 5
runs-per-over. Faheem Ashraf also managed to grab a scalp while Shadab Khan
took a couple himself.
On a track like that, anything over 200 was going to be a
tricky chase, but Trent Boult showed that even a score just above 100 would
have been safe enough for the Black Caps.
The left-handed pacer tore apart the Pakistan batting line
up, almost as though he was a Samurai sword and the Pakistani batsmen were chunks of butter.
It would have been further embarrassing for Pakistan had
Rumman Raees and Mohammad Amir not fought better than the batters as the duo
made 16 and 14 respectively. Captain Sarfraz Ahmed also scored 14 runs while Faheem
Ashraf was the only other player to reach double figures with 10 runs to his
name.
For the Kiwis, Boult managed to scalp 5 wickets after giving
away only 17 runs while Colin Munro and Lockie Ferguson took 2 wickets each,
with the former giving away only 10 runs from his 7 overs.