Pallekele International Cricket Stadium, Kandy
It was a heavy weight clash in group A - New Zealand and Pakistan. New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat first. They were off to a rather slow start at approximately 4 runs per over. Martin Guptill shone with a half century but wickets fell at regular intervals. Birthday boy Ross Taylor walked in at 4 and created a valuable 62 run partnership with Scott Styris and once he departed the Black Caps were at just 175 at the end of 42 overs. He joined Nathan McCullum in spawning a brief partnership of 35 from 23 balls.
He was later joined by Jacob Oram and the fireworks they put on was a delight to watch. They added 84 off 22 balls and made the team race past 300 at the end of the 50 over quota. One hundred runs were scored in the last 5 overs and the target for Pakistan was 303. Taylor reached 131 off 124 balls with 62 runs coming off 16 balls towards the end of the innings. The birthday boy was surely lucky, being dropped twice by Kamran Akmal. Umar Gul was the pick of the bowlers, claiming 3 wickets.
Pakistan, in reply began to lose wickets early on. They were 45-5 and Umar Akmal and Abdul Razzaq tried stabilizing the innings. But it was fruitless as wickets continued to tumble in the other end. Pakistan were bowled out for 192 with Umar Gul's 34 off 25 trying to help the cause. Tim Southee took 3 wickets, giving away just 25 runs in 8 overs. Ross Taylor was adjudged the Man of the Match for his well placed innings.
With a 71 in the recent match against India and a test double century vs Bangladesh in March, he seems to be in good touch. Will Ross Taylor do an encore?
Let's wait and watch.
Comments