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DATE : 13-03-1994

VENUE : Eden Park, Auckland

MATCH : 4th ODI, New Zealand Vs Pakistan

Writer : Karthik Narayan

Scorecard

Cricketfundas.com’s magnum opus “and it’s a tie” continues with the special coverage of tied ODIs and Test matches. Today the spotlight is turned on a match in the 1993-94 season of the 4th ODI when Pakistan toured New Zealand. Pakistan had already clinched the series by winning all the first 3 ODIs of this 5 match series. Even though the result of this match did not matter, for the hosts, it was playing for pride.

Teams:

Pakistan: Saeed Anwar, Aamer Sohail, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Saleem Malik (Captain), Basit Ali, Asif Mujtaba, Rashid Latif (Wicket Keeper), Wasim Akram, Akram Raza, Waqar Younis, Ata-ur-Rehman.

New Zealand: Bryan Young, BR Hartland, Andrew Jones, Ken Rutherford (Captain), Chris Cairns, Shane Thomson, TE Blain (Wicket Keeper), Gavin Larsen, Matthew Hart, Chris Pringle, Richard de Groen

Toss: Pakistan won the toss and elected to bat.

Pakistan's Innings:

In cold conditions and a pitch traditionally supporting swing, Pakistan started their innings. Even though they had played the 3 ODIs before, the Pakistan openers Anwar and Sohail struggled to make runs. The ball darted around a lot and it was freakish drives and edges that gave them some useful runs; Anwar in particular struggled a lot to get into double figures. Pringle and de Groen, after a great start, yet without luck, gave way to the support bowlers of Cairns and Larsen.

They also got into the act, by bowling some lovely balls. At 38, Larsen struck inducing an edge from the bat of Sohail. A similar ball got rid of Anwar (25 off 59 balls!) off the same bowler at 59. Inzamam was left on no-man’s land when his bad shot selection gave Larsen a dream and deadly spell.

The skipper Saleem Malik failed to come to terms with the conditions – his 7 came off 23 balls before he was consumed by a Shane Thomson delivery. Wickets came in very regularly, and Pakistan never got any player to settle down and play himself in. 80/4 became 85/5 when Asif Mujtaba was claimed by Matthew Hart (making his ODI debut). Rashid Latif also consumed overs for no great score – 101/6! Soon Larsen came back to complete what were supremely memorable bowling figures 10-0-24-4! It was truly spectacular to see him stick to the basics and earn every wicket with a good ball.

Basit Ali, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis came and went quickly – Pakistan managed to retain their last pair and not get bowled out. They ended their innings with 161/9 off 50 overs, the top scorer was Basit Ali 34 (60 balls). All the Kiwi bowlers felt at home, and Larsen stole the show with his good show.

New Zealand's Innings:

The target was 162 and the first men to hold the bat for New Zealand in this match were Bryan Young and Hartland – both to face the formidable pair of Waqar and Wasim. And the “W”s were on their usual ways – Wasim softened the openers in his first few overs, and Waqar swiped them off the turf – both the openers fell to his high speed dastardly deliveries aimed at the stumps! At 9/2, Jones and Rutherford walked in to face the music. First change bowler Ata-ur-Rehman (he has been one of the most expensive bowlers in ODI history – more known for the match when Azhar massacred him all over the Sharjah ground!) went for galloping runs – 22 off his 4 overs in this low scoring game.

New Zealand tried to claw back into the game with a decent partnership between Jones and Rutherford, but Akram Raja and the skipper got the breakthroughs at the right time. Rutherford played a good knock of 47, which was the highest score of the match. Cairns and Shane Thomson tried to consolidate, and make a recovery, but they also fell after useful contributions of 39 and 24. Waqar was brought back into the attack to break that partnership and he got rid of Thomson caught behind by the keeper Latif.

Wasim Akram too got into the wicket column when he dismissed the Kiwi Keeper Blain. The balance was even with NZ at 144/6, needing 18 for a win, and only 4 wickets in hand! But Waqar was on a “demolition mission”. As we found out after reading that stat – it was all Waqar – Wicket! Cairns was run out in a horrible mix up with Larsen after a steady innings – it seemed he would take his team home as it was a mere ten runs for the win!
 

The hero of the day till now, Gavin Larsen came in without much of a reputation of batting skills – and walked back almost immediately LBW to that great toe crusher! That score was 152/8 now.

The ball swung for Waqar and it was aimed with deadly precision at a furious pace – the way he was bowling, it seemed whoever came to bat now would be in trouble. The match situation tightened. New Zealand’s last three batsmen Hart (on debut this was the most horrible time to bat!), Chris Pringle and de Groen had to do something special with the bat. They had to face the choking end overs. At 159 – Hart lost his stumps when an inswinging Yorker rocked it.

The last pair came to face the last over which was bowled by Waqar Younis! In that cold weather, things got very hot for them! Waqar was on song, and the songs were getting louder – two singles were scrambled in the first 3 balls. That made sure New Zealand wouldn’t lose this match – scores were level!

1 run off 3 balls – a single would have done it. Then again – a single delivery could do it for Pakistan. And Pakistan got that magic delivery on time – Waqar bowled yet another toe crusher that caught de Groen plumb in front of the wicket. And the end result was that the match was tied! Such a low scoring game with bowlers enjoying every bit of it – it was a superb match with excitement all the time.

Waqar worked up quite a bit of steam, pace and aggression in this match and rightly deserved all of the 6 wickets that he got. He was unanimously awarded the Man of the Match. His bowling figures were 9.4-1-30-6.

One interesting fact about this match was that there were absolutely no No-Balls bowled in this game at all. This is one of the rarest ODIs to have such a feat. Also the extras were minimal – in all only 27 extras (New Zealand gave 15 and Pakistan 12).

162 off 50 overs sounded like a low and easy target – but that can never be said of any cricket match. It is the unpredictability that has kept all of us glued to this game.

Thus ends yet another excellent edition of our ace section – And It’s A Tie!
 

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