Pakistan skipper Shahid Afridi has described the series win against New Zealand as a timely win for the team. Pakistan defeated the Kiwis in the fifth One day International (ODI) of the six-match series to clinch the series by 3-1.The visitors were down after they lost the first match at Wellington, but they bounced back in the series winning three back-to-back matches.
After the match, Afridi said that he expected this effort from his team and he was very much pleased with the combined effort of all the players. According to the Pakistan captain, this will give the team confidence ahead of the World Cup, which will be starting from the 19th of February, 2011.
An extraordinary effort by the youngster Ahmed Shehzad, who scored his maiden century in today’s match, paved way for Pakistan to post a match winning total on the board. The youngster scored 115 runs off just 109 balls and laid a solid platform for the middle-order batsmen.
Afridi praised Ahmed and said, “Ahmed Shehzad, what a talent he is. But yes, given the way that we were playing, I expected us to reach 300, 300-plus but in the middle, the wicket became a bit slow, and they [New Zealand] bowled very well towards the end.”
Although Pakistan didn’t get what they expected at the end of their 50 overs, the bowlers did a very good job to bowl-out the Kiwis for just 227 runs.
Pakistan captain also praised the efforts of his bowlers; Afridi himself bowled exceptionally well. He had also scored 24 runs when he came out to bat.
Wahab Riaz took three wickets for Pakistan and he got good support from Umar Gul and Afridi, who took two wickets each. Fielding was also good for the visitors today as two of the Kiwi batsmen were run-out.
Although the hosts lost the match and the series, the stand-in captain of the team Ross Taylor praised the effort of his bowlers. He said, “I think we were very happy to restrict them to 268, the way that Kyle [Mills] and Jacob [Oram] brought us back into the game. They were looking to get a score well over 300 and to restrict them to 268 was a very good job.”
Taylor said that batting let the team down yet again. Although the team had a good platform after half-centuries from Taylor and Martin Guptill, the lower middle-order collapsed and the team lost their last 5 wickets for just 35 runs.
The Pakistan camp will be more than happy with their effort, and will be looking to end the series on a high by winning the last match as well. The team seems to be hitting form just at the right time and the series win will give their confidence a massive boost ahead of the ICC World Cup 2011.
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