Pakistan bowlers played an important role in helping the men in green defeat Zimbabwe in the first T20 international match at the Harare Sports Club on Sunday, despite their batsmen failing to put too many runs on th board.
Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi has asked the batsmen to deliver when they face Zimbabwe in the second and the final T20 match of the series on Tuesday.
"The batsmen need to take up their responsibility," Dawn.com quoted Afridi as saying.
However, the Zimbabwe batsmen were also not up to the mark as they failed to chase a modest total of 137 runs for victory. Only skipper Elton Chigumbara showed some fighting spirit with 31 runs against his name.
The Zimbabwe skipper should also bat higher up the order and control the innings, while allowing other players such as Craig Irvine and Sean Williams to bat in the lower-middle order, as they have the ammunition to destroy the Pakistan attack.
If Irvine and Williams get going, the home team can hope to clinch the second T20.
Chigumbara felt that they should have reached the target of 137 runsm especially with enough quality batsmen in their ranks.
"I'm not going to sit here and make excuses, at the end of the day we were chasing 137 and, despite how well they bowled and how well their spinner [Imad] bowled, it's just a score that you need to get. We were supposed to get that score, with the kind of players we have," said Chigumbara.
However there were plenty of positives from the first T20 for Zimbabwe, as Chamu Chibhabha rattled the Pakistani batsmen, taking three crucial top order wickets with the new ball.
Chigumbara will want Chibhabha to come up with a similar performance and help restrict the Pakistan team once again, if they field first. However, Pakistan will be keen to take revenge on Chibhabha by scoring some quick runs off his bowling.
The batsmen from both the sides failed to perform on the day. What surprised one even more was the failure of the Pakistani batsmen such as Ahmed Shehzad, Mukhtar Ahmed and Umar Akmal. One could see these players put up a brilliant batting effort on Tuesday and entertain the crowd, who had to be satisfied with a low scoring first T20 game.
The home team needs to register a victory if they are to have any hope of drawing the T20 series, while Pakistan will want to win the series two-zip and carry on the winning form in the ODI series as well.
Where to watch live
Zimbabwe vs Pakistan 2nd T20 match is scheduled for 1pm local time (4:30pm IST, 4pm PKT, 7am ET) start. Viewers in India can watch the Zimbabwe vs Pakistan 2nd T20 live on Ten Cricket with live streaming on tensports.com.
Pakistan viewers can watch the Zimbabwe vs Pakistan 2nd T20 on Ten Sports. Live streaming is also avalable on Geo Super Tv.
Viewers in the US can watch the game live on Willow TV with live streaming Willow TV online.
