Sharjah: Pakistan, buoyed by their success in the opener of the five-match One Day International (ODI) series against New Zealand in Dubai, will look to make it two wins out of two in what promises to be an even contest at Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Friday.
Sharjah, which has the record among venues for hosting the highest number of ODIs, is expected to be packed to add glitter to the contest.
Though the spirit of the Pakistan team is very high, they know that to beat New Zealand they will have to play hard cricket. During this tour, New Zealand have repeatedly shown their ability to bounce back from a defeat. In the Test series, though they lost heavily in the first Test, they squared the series through a spectacular win in Sharjah, as they did in the two-match Twenty20 series.
Pakistan won the first one-dayer mainly due to Shahid Afridi’s inspired knock, while Haris Sohail produced a superb all-round performance.
Afridi walked in to bat when defeat was looming large and, had he too departed quickly like he had often done in recent years, New Zealand would have sailed to an easy victory.
So once again the focus will be on Afridi, who admitted on his arrival here that he is a “once in a blue-moon batsman”. The fact that Afridi ended his run of not staying at the wicket for more than 25 balls in an ODI since July 2013, is a huge boost for Pakistan, not only for this series but also for next year’s World Cup.
New Zealand’s top-order crashed in Dubai, so it was left to their experienced batsman Ross Taylor to lift them out of trouble through a stupendous century. Taylor‘s form is as inspiring to the Black Caps as Afridi’s is to Pakistan as he has now scored three centuries in a row.
The first match was a big blow to the New Zealand bowlers, who could not break the Afridi-Sohail seventh-wicket partnership. But the Sharjah wicket does help pace and of late has produced good bounce too, so pacer Adam Milne, who bowled very well in Dubai and generated good pace, could be dangerous.
Equally strong is the Pakistan pace attack led by Mohammad Irfan. Though they did miss Mohammad Hafeez’s skills, Sohail chipped in as back-up for Afridi’s leg-spin.
New Zealand are yet to announce whether Martin Guptill, who is suffering from a hamstring injury, and Corey Anderson, who was hit on the head by an Irfan bouncer, will be fit to play.
