A hat-trick from Matt Henry couldn’t prevent the Black Caps from crashing to an 88-run defeat in their first T20 against Pakistan in Lahore this morning.
Henry became the fourth New Zealander to claim a T20I hat-trick — joining Jacob Oram, Tim Southee (2) and Michael Bracewell — as he helped dismiss the hosts for 182 with one ball remaining in the final over.
But an understrength Black Caps side then crumbled against Pakistan’s pace attack, skittled for 94 in the 16th over as six batsmen were dismissed for single figures.
Haris Rauf’s career-best figures of 4-18 upstaged Henry’s hat-trick as the tourists lost their last five wickets for only six runs, falling 1-0 behind in the five-match series.
Henry picked up his first two scalps at the end of the 13th over, getting Shadab Khan and Iftikhar Ahmed caught behind, before returning to the bowling crease in the 19th over.
Shaheen Shah Afridi showed no intention to defend the hat-trick delivery and slogged Henry high towards long on, where Daryl Mitchell claimed the catch before calmly parrying the ball to Chad Bowes as he fell over the rope.
“I knew [Afridi] was going to be coming hard so I took the pace off,” Henry said. “It was a bit touch and go there for a second. It went very high so I was hoping it would come straight down, but it was a great piece of work from Daryl on the boundary there and it made it very special.
“It’s not very often you get that — a first hat-trick was pretty cool. But obviously a bit of a shame with the result. You never want to be on the losing side of something like that.”
Adam Milne (2-51) had earlier helped the Black Caps make a strong start after losing the toss, trapping Mohammad Rizwan and bowling out Babar Azam as both dangerous openers departed with 30 on the board.
Left-handers Saim Ayub and Fakhar Zaman then each scored 47 and combined in an aggressive 79-run stand off 43 balls, before Saim was undone by Bowes’ direct throw from deep midwicket.
Henry’s efforts prevented Pakistan from posting too formidable a target, but the Black Caps never threatened to approach the mark in their stumbling chase.
“I thought we bowled really well up front,” Henry said. “We were really good in some areas, but we can still tighten some zones where we’d just like to be a little bit more ruthless in our execution.
“But Pakistan batted well as well and they got off to quite a good run rate. It was always going to be a tricky target to chase and unfortunately it didn’t go our way.
“With the bat, it’s just guys getting used to these conditions. They’re really different to what we’ve been playing on.”
The Black Caps last weekend ended their home summer by edging the T20 series against Sri Lanka, making it seven wins in their last eight completed games across formats. But still missing eight players on IPL duty — and with Pakistan back to full strength after a shock T20 series defeat by Afghanistan — the batsmen were overmatched.
Mark Chapman top scored with a chancy 34 from 27 balls but was also fortunate to survive when Rizwan missed a regulation stumping early in his innings.
Opening the innings, skipper Tom Latham (20) managed the only other knock of note as the Black Caps never recovered from falling to 29-3 in the fifth over.
Rauf quickly wrapped up the innings by claiming three wickets in his return spell to give Pakistan an emphatic start in the series.
- with AP
