Pakistan beat Zimbabwe to register first win

Photo: ZEE news

Pakistan finally got the taste of victory in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 as they beat Zimbabwe by 20 runs at the GABBA in Brisbane. After a couple of defeats, first in the hands of India and then to West Indies, this one was a must win game for Pakistan. And they did just that.

Pakistan, after deciding to bat first bat, was off to a very poor start as their top order once again failed to click. In the first 10 overs they managed to score just 14 runs at expense of 2 wickets. Misbah Ul Haq yet again played an anchoring role that helped Pakistan to stay in the match despite losing wickets at regular intervals. Harish Sohail (27) and Umar Akmal (33), once again had starts but both of them failed to convert those into big innings. The neat result was that Pakistan was once again failed to put up a big total. Wahab Riaz towards the end scored a useful half century that enabled Pakistan to get to the score of 235/7 after 50 overs. Wahab Riaz stayed unbeaten on 54 off just 46 balls. For Zimbabwe Chatara picked up 3 wickets and Sean Williams picked up the two wickets of Umar Akmal and Shahid Afridi within 3 balls in an over with a couple absolute gems.

Zimbabwe, very much like their opponents in today’s match, was off to a poor start as Mohammad Irfan got both the openers cheaply. Brendan Taylor (54) top scored for the Africans but once he got out and Sean Williams (33) followed him, it was curtains for the Zimbabwean batting. Eventually they got all out on 215 and handed Pakistan their first victory in this edition of the world cup. For Pakistan Mohammad Irfan and Wahab Riaz got 4 wickets each and Rahat Ali got 1 wicket. Wahab Riaz deservedly got the man-of-the-match award for his all round performance in the match.

With this Pakistan’s hopes of qualifying for the next round still stays alive even after making a poor start to the tournament. On the other hand, Zimbabwe can consider them to be the first team to face the elimination from Group B, although their chance of qualifying to the next round stays alive mathematically.

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About Argha Ghosh

An ardent follower of sports and die-hard Manchester United fan, Argha's ultimate dream is to watch a Manchester derby from the Stretford End at the Old Trafford.