New York – Pakistan beat Canada by seven wickets in a Group A match of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in New York on Tuesday.
Chasing a 107-run target on a tricky surface, Pakistan crossed the finishing line with seven wickets in hand and 15 balls to spare. After losing Saim Ayoub (6) early, top scorer Mohammad Rizwan (53) and skipper Babar Azam (33) stitched a 63-run partnership for the second wicket to take the team close to the victory target. Pakistan reached 107/3 in 17.3 overs to register the first win of the tournament. Dilon Heyliger bagged two wickets and Jeremy Gordon had one. Mohammad Amir was named player of the match.
After being asked to bat first, Canada kept losing wickets at regular intervals and ended up at 106/7 in the allocated 20 overs. As top and middle-order batters continued going back to the hut, Aaron scored an important fifty to keep Canada in the game. He was the top scorer with 52 runs. Kaleem Shah made 13 and skipper Saad Bin Zafar 10 runs. No other batter could enter the double figures. Haris Rauf and Mohammad Amir bagged two wickets each, Naseem Shah and Shaheen Shah Afridi had one each while Nicholas Kirton was run out.
Pakistan has made one change in the Playing XI that lost the last match against arch-rival India, bringing in Saim Ayoub in place of Iftikhar Ahmed.
Canada Playing XI: 1 Aaron Johnson, 2 Navneet Dhaliwal, 3 Pargat Singh, 4 Nicholas Kirton, 5 Shreyas Movva (wk), 6 Ravinderpal Singh, 7 Dilon Heyliger, 8 Saad Bin Zafar (capt), 9 Kaleem Sana, 10 Junaid Siddiqui, 11 Jeremy Gordon
Pakistan Playing XI: 1 Mohammad Rizwan (wk), 2 Saim Ayub, 3 Babar Azam (capt), 4 Fakhar Zaman, 5 Usman Khan, 6 Shadab Khan, 7 Imad Wasim, 8 Shaheen Shah Afridi, 9 Naseem Shah, 10 Haris Rauf, 11 Mohammad Amir
