Abu Dhabi: Pakistan guaranteed a spot in the semi final of the ICC World T20 sealing a run victory over Namibia in Super 12, Group 2 in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. Pakistan posted a mammoth 189/2 in their 20 before a collective bowling performance from them restricted Namibia to 144/5.
The former champions rode on the knocks of their dynamic opening duo – Mohammad Rizwan(79*) and Babar Azam(70) to post the formidable total on the board. The pair added 113 runs although they starting off the innings quite slow getting just 59 halfway through the innings.
However, they quickly changed the gears right after drinks break going after the Namibian bowlers who looked powerless against such a formidable batters.Skipper Babar continued his amazing run in this bringing up another half-century and although he departed in the 15th over of the innings, he propelled Pakistan to score 50 runs in the four overs after the drinks break.
Rizwan though remained unbeaten till the end clicking the gears up smoothly to pile up runs while also getting the support of veteran Mohammad Hafeez who hammered a 16 ball 32 with duo stitching a 67 run stand to post a mammoth total.
Chasing 190 became uphill task for Namibia and they were unable do so although their batting didn’t fall like a pack of cards. Craig Williams(40) and Stephan Baard(29) showed against a star stacked Pakistani bowling but the required rate was too much to deal with ultimately falling short. David Wiese, who was the top scorer (43*) , added few runs for himself in his debut year representing a different nation.
Brief Scores: Pakistan 189/2 in 20 overs( Mohammad Rizwan 79*, Babar Azam 70; David Wiese 1/30) beat Namibia 144/5 in 20 overs(David Wiese 43*, Craig Williams 40 ;Hasan Ali 1/22, Haris Rauf 1/25) by 45 runs.
