Winning a Test match in New Zealand has always been a daunting task for most teams and it didn’t turn out to be any different as Pakistan succumbed to a 2-0 defeat at the hands of the Kiwis in the recently concluded Test series.
Pakistan’s defeat in this series wasn’t shocking but what surprised all of us was the way they got beaten. It was an outright domination by the Kiwis with both bat and ball. Although the visitors offered some sort of resistance in the first Test, which they lost by 101 runs, their performance in the second match was completely unacceptable. A defeat by an innings and 176 runs is as bad as it can get. Pakistan have now lost five of the 10 matches they have played in the World Test Championship cycle, and that’s the second most number of losses recorded by a team so far.
They encountered the same problems with their batting. The young batsmen had no answer to the questions asked by the Kiwi pacers. They hardly got any partnership going. Some individual performances stood out though. Fawad Alam scored a century and Faheem Ashram was good with his all-round performances in both the Tests as well. Mohammad Rizwan also scored three fifties in four innings, whereas veteran Azhar Ali tried his best with the bat as well. But the batting unit lacked cohesion and the Kiwi bowlers took advantage of that.
Their bowling was decent in the first Test but it fell apart completely in the second match. Shaheen Afridi can be considered as the only consistent bowler across the two matches as he registered a total of six wickets in the series. Pakistan hardly had any other positive to take away from the tour.
New Zealand, on the other hand, were flawless with their performance. They dominated the series with their batting, which was led by skipper Kane Williamson’s masterclass. The Kiwi skipper scored a century in the first Test and followed that up with a double ton in the second match.
Source: Twitter (ICC)
Henry Nicholls showed how good a batsman he is in home Conditions as well, as he scored a fifty in the first match and went on to smash 157 in the second Test. In fact, he shared a massive 369-run stand for the fourth wicket with Williamson in the series-concluding the second match.
Other batsmen like Tom Latham, Tom Blundell, BJ Watling, and Ross Taylor played their part as well, as each of them registered a fifty in this series. Daryl Mitchell walked into the XI for the second Test and scored a century too. So, almost all of them made good use of the opportunities they got.
Although it might look like Williamson was the standout performer in the series, he had close competition from the young Kiwi pacer Kyle Jamieson as well. The youngster finished the series as the highest wicket-taker with a total of 16 wickets to his name. 11 of those wickets came in the second Test, which included a five-wicket haul in the first innings and a six-wicket haul in the second outing. Not only that, he registered two scores of 30+ batting at No.8 in the series as well and that sums up the kind of beast he is becoming in this format.
Source: Twitter (ICC)
The other Kiwi pacers like Tim Southee, Trent Boult, Neil Wagner, and Matt Henry were very impressive as well and they showed how strong a pace-attack New Zealand have to exploit their home conditions. This lethal pace battery is their main strength in this format, at least as far as home matches are considered, and the batsmen support them well, as they have the technique and temperament to wear the opposition’s bowlers down.
This massive series-win took New Zealand to the top of the ICC Test rankings, a feat which is pretty special for them considering where they were as a Test team five years back. Now they are placed at third place with seven wins to their name in the World Test Championship table and are pushing the likes of India and Australia hard, who are occupying the top two spots at the moment.