Hello and Welcome to CricketCountry’s coverage of the first Twenty20 International (T20I) between New Zealand and Pakistan at Auckland. We, Rishad Dsouza and Paulami Chakraborty bring you over-by-over updates of the match. This is the first of three T20Is of the series and the series will be followed by three One-Day Internationals (ODIs) series. New Zealand will be confident going into the match as they defeated Sri Lanka T20I matches and ODIs games. This will be the first match of Pakistan away from home this year, while New Zealand have an advantage after their win against Sri Lanka and this will be the only T20I series for the Hosts’ ahead of the ICC World T20 2016 to be held in India. LIVE FULL SCORECARD: New Zealand vs Pakistan, 1st T20I at Auckland
OUT! Sohaib Maqsood c Ronchi (wk) b Santner 0(2)
Live Cricket Score, Pakistan 52/1 in overs 6, Batting: Mohammad Hafeez 4(9), Sohaib Maqsood 5(9): Pakistan at back-foot losing their Shehzada for 16 runs. But Hafeez has started going for biggies and hitting Corey Anderson all over the ground. Huge sixth over for Pakistan as 18 runs come from it. Hafeez on fire!
OUT! Ahmed Shehzad c Elliott b Milne 16 (14)
Live Cricket Score, Pakistan 11/0 in overs 3, Batting: Mohammad Hafeez 4(9), Ahmed Shehzad 5(9): A brilliant first over from Matt Henry as he starts off with a maiden in a T20I match. Slow start from Pakistan as they have only 11 runs from the first three overs. They need to score fast runs as this is a T20 game. Boundaries have started coming from Mohammad Hafeez and Ahmed Shehzad which i a good news.
Toss: New Zealand won the toss and elected to field.
Pakistan will grab this opportunity to gain hold over the T20I matches as this will help them improve their performance before the line of T20I matches coming up. With inclusion of Mohammad Aamer, they seem to be comfortable and confident that the visitors can fall heavy on the hosts. On the other hand Kane Williamson has been handed over the responsibilities of captaincy and yet he is assured that his knock out will not be affected in the process. It will be interesting to see how the teams manage to capture the hold of the T20I series. All eyes will indefinably be on Aamer, who makes his comeback after spending 5 years away from cricket due to a spot fixing ban.