BENGALURU: After being hit around the park for more than four hundred runs in the first innings, Pakistan fans would, no doubt, have been praying for the forces of nature to be unleashed in Bengaluru on Saturday evening. They got two. The first came in the form of rain that interrupted play twice and made the Pakistani chase brief and easy to keep track of. The second was Fakhar Zaman.
To be fair, Pakistan would still have romped home against New Zealand even without the rain, for that was the kind of imperious form that Zaman found himself in. When rain stopped play for the second and final time, Pakistan were 200-1 from just 25.3 overs chasing the Kiwis’ first innings total of 401/6. Zaman accounted for 126 of those runs while their much-maligned captain Babar Azam had played an able second fiddle with a 63-ball 66. Messrs Duckworth, Lewis and Stern decreed that they were ahead by 21 runs.
The victory infused Pakistan with life, a couple of matches after they had been left for dead. The equation is now simple. They need to beat England in their final game while hoping the Kiwis can't get past Sri Lanka. Given the sort of form England are in and the fact that dark clouds will once again hover over the New Zealand-Sri Lanka encounter in Bengaluru on Thursday, Pakistan will be cautiously optimistic. If things go according to plan, it might just be another India-Pakistan encounter in the final four.
The match itself was a microcosm of the typical Pakistani World Cup campaign. After the first half, nobody in their right minds would have given the players in green shirts a chance. Going in with four fast bowlers — of whom only the promising Mohammad Wasim Jr made an impression — appeared a blunder after New Zealand set them a mammoth target of 402. Even the World Cup's in-house statisticians barely gave them a chance as the television screens confidently proclaimed that Pakistan only had a ten per cent chance of winning. Like how a couple of weeks ago, nobody gave Pakistan any chance of qualifying. Like how, in 1992, Pakistan looked to be heading out after only one win in their first five matches.
Back then, Imran Khan's team had been likened to cornered tigers. Their 2023 counterparts have been cornered, caged, put on display and mercilessly mocked. Yet, like their illustrious predecessors, they too appear to have figured out the kind of alchemy needed to come back from the dead.
On Saturday, Zaman personified whatever magic these Pakistani teams keep calling upon. Eleven of the 81 balls he faced were hit into the crowd, some with the kind of brute force that almost caused him to fall over. New Zealand tried pace, then spin, then some more pace but there were times when it appeared that no bowler in the world could contain Zaman. The rain might have made things easier for Pakistan but even the most ardent of their fans would have been ruing how it robbed them of the chance to see more of this innings.
There were cuts, pulls, drives, even a couple of sweeps that launched the ball into the crowd. And all of them had one thing in common. They were all burdened with inevitability. By the end of it, the likes of Ish Sodhi and Mitchell Santner appeared resigned that no matter what they did, they were going to be hit out of the ground. Balls were being tossed up, thrown back from the stands and tossed up again. The rain appeared an act of mercy for more of this mauling would have left them with shell shock. There is every chance it might just have already.
Zaman rubbed off on the normally cautious Babar too, with the latter hitting a couple into the crowd. Those chants of 'Zim-Babar' will be missing for the next couple of games at the least.
An hour after the second rain-break, the huge screens at the stadium confirmed the inevitable. There was no stopping Pakistan on Saturday. And if the chips fall in their favour and they make it to the final four, they will require some stopping!
Brief scores: New Zealand 401/6 in 50 ovs (Rachin 108, Williamson 95; Wasim 3/60) vs Pakistan 200/1 in 25.3 ovs (Fakhar 126 n.o, Babar 66 n.o). Pakistan won by 21 runs (DLS method).
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