PESHAWAR
History will be made today when Babar Azam’s Pakistan will take on Tom Latham’s New Zealand in the first of the three One-Day Internationals at the Pindi Cricket Stadium. The occasion will see the tourists play their first match on Pakistan soil since 2003.
This will be the fourth time the two sides will meet at the Pindi Cricket Stadium in an ODI with Pakistan enjoying a 3-0 advantage. Prior to this match, Pakistan and New Zealand have met 19 times in an ODI in Pakistan between 1976 and 2003 with Pakistan winning 16 times.
Pakistan and New Zealand last met in an international 50-over competition during the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2019 when Babar Azam’s glorious century anchored his side to a fabulous six-wicket win at Birmingham.
This series provides an opportunity to sixth-ranked Pakistan to climb a spot in the ICC Rankings. If the hosts beat the tourists by a 3-0 score-line, they would jump to fifth position, however, any other result will see both sides retain their pre-series rankings.
New Zealand, the top-ranked ODI team in the ICC Rankings and the finalists of the 2019 World Cup, come into this series with a 3-0 sweep over Bangladesh in the three-match ODI series at home in March and will be eager to extend their winning streak.
Pakistan’s last outing in the format at this venue was in October-November 2020, when they defeated Zimbabwe 2-1, while in their last ODI series, they defeated South Africa by 2-1. The series will not be part of the ICC World Cup Super League as both the PCB and NZC have mutually agreed to swap the status of this series with the one taking place in the 2022-23 season. This means the ODI series in the 2022-23 season will count towards the World Cup 2023 qualification while the series commencing on Friday will be a bilateral fixture in which team and player ranking points will be up for grabs.
The second and third matches will be played on September 19 and 21 at the same venue after which the two sides will travel to Lahore for five T20s between Sept. 25 to Oct 3, 2021.
Pakistan-New Zealand – the two crowd pullers are world class teams to face each other in an ODI opener. Host Pakistan and the visitor New Zealand are being considered as the most dangerous, crowd pullers, spirited and fighting teams with top class players. Both teams mostly rely on some top class all-rounders with each having a bunch of leading batsmen of the world and famous pacers.
The enthusiasm of the players as well as the millions of spectators, watching the serious live on electronic, social media would lead to joyful moments for cricket crazy fans. People of Pakistan are also anxiously waiting for this series because on one hand the New Zealand cricket team is considered as a strong and dangerous opponent playing the cricket on Pakistani soil after 18 years long break and on the other goodwill would promote besides highlighting a softer image of Pakistan to the rest of the world.
When the two teams take the field, it certainly attracts cricket fans all over the world as well. The two teams’ series at one hand attract the spectators from both the countries as after a long time the international cricket and team like New Zealand, which is famous for entertaining cricket and pulling cricketing fans, are playing against host Pakistan.
Hopefully, the Series cements a cricketing bond between the two countries besides providing much entertaining cricket to the cricketing fans of the world. Cricket between the two countries – Pakistan and New Zealand has always been the toughest and fighting for each other.
Pakistan has the advantage of home ground and home crowd. Most of the matches between the two teams have been won or lost by a narrow margin because each of the teams fought for victory till the last ball to be bowled.
