Unnecessary cricket from Pakistan gives the hosts 1-0 lead

A Kane Williamson masterclass and a Tim Southee special has ended Pakistan's ODI winning streak by winning in Wellington by 61 runs via the DL method due to rain.

It was not necessarily a matter of skill, but it was an issue of consistency and discipline that put Pakistan on the back foot in the first ODI of the series. I believe that it was a quality match in the making which eventually came down to the team that made the least number of mistakes that came out on top. And certainly, New Zealand made fewer errors than Pakistan.

I believe that the first mistake from Pakistan came from the toss. Winning the toss and electing to bowl first on an excellent surface was a shocker in my opinion. I thought that after playing so much cricket over the last 10 months and having so much success they would learn from their past mistakes. Pakistan's strength is their bowling and they are the best at it in the world, hence, I strongly believe that batting first and getting a score on the board would have given the tourists a greater chance of controlling the game. Pakistan is very reliable defenders of totals and has a great reputation of defending very small first innings scores as well. When it comes to chasing I think that is where the panic occurs and irrationalities are more and more exploited in the batting lineup.

After what was an excellent start by Mohammad Amir and Ruman Raeess in the first 8 overs, I thought it was the overs between 9 to 15 that let New Zealand off the chain. But overall despite conceding 315 runs I strongly believe that it was a good bowling effort in foreign conditions and very chasable on that wicket. But in saying that, it could have been a lot better scenario for the tourists if certain moments of the match were won by them. Much is the affair with ODI cricket, that games are won when certain key moments of the game are seized by the team. Hence, I believe that whilst Pakistan bowled well overall and showed some brilliant aggressive intent, it was moments of serious pressure and "make or break" moments that New Zealand grasped. In particular, the dropped catch of Kane Williamson on 26 after Pakistan were bouncing back phenomenally.

Besides that, I think that Pakistan overall was too aggressive and was more in intent to take wickets for the whole game. Whilst I believe that this is a great mindset to have and they have all the firepower in the world to do that, however long spells against the wind and not enough defence in managing all the bowlers somewhat smothers the attack that they process.

Moreover, I strongly believe that Pakistan has re-exposed themselves again on the fact that they are not a chasing team and I believe that New Zealand will try to have them batting last to continue the panic in their batting order. But when looking at the way that Pakistan went about the chase, there were way too many mistakes in terms that many of the shots were just unnecessary. Azhar Ali's shot that had him out LBW was an irresponsible moment of play as he was caught playing across the line in the search for a boundary when it was not needed and was the not the ball to hit. With the start that Pakistan had in the first three balls of their innings, I thought they had really asserted themselves until Azhar was dismissed. Moreover, the horror review that he took was another moment of irresponsibility that ultimately left Pakistan's best batsmen; Babar Azam left stranded. After what I had thought was a horrible piece of umpiring to a ball that was very high and clearly going over the stumps to the naked eye, Pakistan's irresponsible waste of a review certainly came back to bite them as Azam was out for his first duck.


With the middle order failing to fire, Pakistan's low-middle order showed some fight with Fakhr Zaman looking like he was playing in a different league to the others. A glorious 82 by the opener certainly showed that he is confident in his aggressive approach to putting pressure back on the opposition bowlers who were bowling very well to leave Pakistan at 6/166 before the rain came.



I have no doubt that Pakistan will bounce back and I hope that they learn from the errors that they made. Whilst I do not believe that it was a difference in skill level between the teams, but it was just in that Pakistan had made more errors than the hosts. Overall, let's hope for a good game of cricket and may the best team win.