Captain Agha praises NZ players for playing top brand cricket

ISLAMABAD: As Pakistan were outwitted with better planning and decision-making, Captain Salman Ali Agha praised New Zealand for playing far better cricket in the fourth T20I that Pakistan lost in a one-sided battle.

The decision to bowl first on a wicket that supported stroke-making earlier on proved decisive. The ball was moving and seaming all around under lights with just two of the Pakistan batsmen Abdul Samad (44) and Irfan Khan (24) succeeding in hitting the double figures. The rest of the batsmen including century-maker in third T20 Hasan Nawaz had no clue how to tackle Kiwis pacers.

“Kiwis bowled brilliantly, making it difficult for us to adjust to the conditions. They outplayed us more due to their superb bowling,” Salman Ali Agha said. Later talking to the media in a post-match talk, Abdul Samad admitted that things turned totally different under lights.

“Ball was seaming and swinging all around when we started batting. When we bowled there was nothing special in the wicket -- it was sort of a normal wicket. But the ball started seaming and swinging when our turn to bat came. It was moving all around and even started spinning a lot.”

Samad said that the tour was more of an effort to raise a competitive team for the T20 Asia Cup and later for the T20 World Cup. “I think the silver lining is that we have learned a lot from this match. After playing flawless cricket in the third T20 we struggled here but at the same time it was a lesson for our cricketers on how to play on such tracks and under such conditions. We are learning with each passing match. We will try not to repeat mistakes we have made in this match.”

Surprisingly, the Pakistan think-tank did not take a clue from the earlier match that saw the Australian women’s team decimating host New Zealand by 82 runs. Australian women smashed New Zealand all around scoring 204-3 while batting first with New Zealand failing to meet the challenge getting bowled out for 122 in 17th over.

Samad also referred to that match, saying that earlier match followed the same pattern, “New Zealand and Australian women’s match followed the same pattern.” “We have a young team. Our effort is to test cricketers’ skills. It is a sort of learning process for our new-look team.”

Samad added that every effort would be made to learn from these mistakes and do better in the coming matches. On Hasan Nawaz’s ups and downs show, Samad said he was a positive kid. “Scoring a century after getting two ducks is never an easy task. Hasan achieved that which should be a matter of pride for him and his family. Hopefully, he would learn from his mistakes. We are making efforts to improve with each match. One-off hiccup is a part of the game.”