AUCKLAND: A fierce maiden century from opener Hassan Nawaz earned Pakistan a record-breaking 9-wicket victory over New Zealand in the third T20I at Eden Park to keep the series alive.<\/p>\n
After scoring a duck in each of the two opening games \u2014 the first innings of his international career \u2014 Nawaz rebounded with a stunning 105 not out in Auckland as the tourists raced to 207-1 in just 16 overs in response to New Zealand\u2019s 204.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old\u2019s ton came off 44 balls, the fastest by any Pakistan player in a T20 international.<\/p>\n
It ensured his team reached the target with four full overs to spare, in a stark reversal of form after heavy losses in\u00a0Christchurch\u00a0and\u00a0Dunedin.<\/p>\n
Nawaz put his early failures behind him with a sparkling knock featuring shots all around the wicket, including a series of audacious ramp shots.<\/p>\n
The right-hander peppered the short Eden Park boundaries with 10 fours and seven sixes, bringing up victory with successive fours off Kyle Jamieson in the 16th over.<\/p>\n
The first of those shots took Nawaz to 100, five balls faster than the previous Pakistan record-holder \u2014 Babar Azam\u00a0against South Africa\u00a0in 2021.<\/p>\n
Fellow opener Mohammad Haris scored 41 off 20 while captain Salman Agha was unbeaten on 51 off 31.<\/p>\n
Earlier, New Zealand looked well placed after Mark Chapman hit a rapid 94 before they were dismissed in their final over.<\/p>\n
Chapman dominated after New Zealand were asked to bat, tallying 11 fours and four sixes from just 44 balls faced.<\/p>\n
The rest of the home side\u2019s batsmen struggled to get going, aside from captain Michael Bracewell\u2019s 31.<\/p>\n
Experienced seamer Haris Rauf bowled Bracewell and finished with Pakistan\u2019s best figures of 3-29.<\/p>\n
Game four of the five-match series is in Mount Maunganui on Sunday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
AUCKLAND: A fierce maiden century from opener Hassan Nawaz earned Pakistan a record-breaking 9-wicket victory over New Zealand in the third T20I at Eden Park to keep the series alive. After scoring a duck in each of the two opening games \u2014 the first innings of his international career \u2014 Nawaz rebounded with a stunning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":68655,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13446,6],"tags":[13216,15789],"class_list":["post-68652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-sports","tag-hassan-nawaz","tag-pakistan-vs-new-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68652"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68664,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68652\/revisions\/68664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}