On Tuesday, New Zealand’s openers blasted sixes to gip Pakistan by 5 wickets and take 2-0 lead in their Twenty20 series.
In the second match of the rain-abbreviated series, Pakistan scored 135-9 off 15 overs while the home team was able to 137-5 with 11 balls to spare in Dunedin to go 2-0 up in the five-match series.
But New Zealand’s standout was a brutal opening partnership featuring Tim Seifert and Finn Allen — seven of the first eight scoring shots in the innings were sixes.
Amazingly, Seifert played a maiden off the opening over from Shaheen Shah Afridi before Allen moved over to the invasion by clearing the small University Oval boundary three times in the second over, from Mohammad Ali.
From Afridi’s second over, Seifert then struck 26 runs from Afridi which included four sixes.
Seifert made 45 off 22 balls, having top-scored with 44 in Christchurch on Sunday in the nine-wicket win. The openers smoked five sixes each as Allen was dismissed soon after for 38 off 16.
Both batsmen are naturally big-hitters and White-ball specialist Allen took a simple mindset into the run chase.
Allen was confident they could chase it down and said: “We just tried to be positive and get ahead of the chase and make it easy for our middle order to finish it off.
In a 15-over game, it’s slightly difficult to judge but the defence is not really easy out here. The ball probably flies a little here, with those being small boundaries, so I think 170 would have probably been competitive.
Mitch Hay’s top-scoring 21 not out ensured the result was never in doubt after four New Zealand wickets fell within four overs mid-chase.
Captain Salman Agha earlier hit 46 off 28 balls to initiate a fight back for Pakistan after opener Hasan Nawaz fell for a second successive duck of the series when Pakistan were sent in to bat.
The skipper went onto score 40 runs with the help of four fours and three sixes, they were 19-2 in the fourth.
Shadab Khan scored 26 off 14 balls and Afridi remained not out on 22 off 14.
While there were 2 wickets each from 4 New Zealand bowlers, including Ben Sears, who was recalled along with all-rounder Jimmy Neesham in place of Tim Robinson and Kyle Jamieson.