Pakistan registered their first one-day international series victory over New Zealand in 12 years with a hard-fought 26-run victory in the third match in Karachi on Wednesday. Imam-ul-Haq scored a 107-ball 90 while Babar Azam made a 62-ball 54 for his 26th ODI half century to lead Pakistan to 287-6 in their 50 overs. Opener Tom Blundell hit 65 for New Zealand while debutant Cole McConchie hit an unbeaten 45-ball 64, but the visitors were bowled out for 261 in 49.1 overs.
Pakistan, who won the first two matches by five and seven wickets respectively at Rawalpindi, took an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five match series.
“It’s always a relief when you win a series and it was a good team effort,” said Azam. “We put (on) a good total and then (the) bowlers were excellent.
“The focus now is not to slacken and come out strong for the next two games and hopefully we can keep giving 100 per cent.”
The last two games are on Friday and Sunday, also in Karachi.
Pakistan’s last ODI series victory over New Zealand was in 2011 and since then they had lost six of the seven series, drawing one.
New Zealand threatened to run away with a win as Blundell and Will Young (33 off 41 balls) gave them a confident opening stand of 83 in 15.3 overs.
Pakistan finally broke through with Young’s run-out on a direct throw from a short third man, before Mohammad Wasim dismissed Daryl Mitchell for 21 — the man who had hit consecutive hundreds in the last two games.
Fifteen runs later, Blundell also went out after failing to reach his crease in an attempt to complete a second run. He hit seven boundaries in his knock.
Tom Latham, who made 45, and Mark Chapman (13) added 40 for the fourth wicket, but pacer Naseem Shah bowled Chapman with a beautiful delivery before Latham was cleared by Wasim.
McConchie made a gallant draw to take a win for New Zealand, hitting two sixes and six fours, but was out of partners.
Naseem, Wasim and Shaheen Shah Afridi all took two wickets for Pakistan.
“The field has probably slowed down a bit,” New Zealand captain Latham said. “If we’d had a few partnerships here and there, things could have been a little different, but we weren’t quite at our best.”
Previously, New Zealand started well by getting in-form opener Fakhar Zaman for 19 off Matt Henry.
Zaman, who had scored three hundred in his last three ODI innings, had formed well before his fall and left it to Haq and Azam to keep the innings steady during their 108-run second wicket stand.
Azam hit three fours and a six before chopping one off Henry’s stumps.
Haq was bowled by pacer Adam Milne in the 38th over.
Abdullah Shafique again struggled with just 19 runs but Agha Salman (31) helped Mohammad Rizwan (32) with 54 runs for the fifth wicket to lift the total.
In the last overs, Mohammad Nawaz and Shadab Khan also scored not out with 11 and 21 respectively.
Henry was the best bowler for New Zealand, taking 3-54.
(This story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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