Mohammad Hafeez scored a quickfire half-century before the Pakistani bowlers combined to dismiss New Zealand for 155 in reply to their total of 171/8 thereby winning the first game of the 3-match T20 series by 16 runs.
Shahid Afridi, before picking up 2 wickets, played a blitzkrieg innings of 22 from just 8 balls that saw him scoring 20 runs off a Matt Henry over with two fours and as many sixes. Also, Mohammad Amir played his first international game in five years in this match.
That, and a few more stats from the 1st T20 have been enlisted below:
1/31 - Mohammad Amir’s figures in this match which was his first T20I after the ban was lifted. Interestingly, in his first T20I match of the career, he got the same figure i.e. 1-31. The match was against England at Oval’s in the T20 World Cup 2009.
7 - out of 8 Matches Pakistan has won when Mohammad Amir take exactly 1 wicket. The anomaly in this list is his very first match which was against England. Since then, whenever he takes exactly 1 wicket, Pakistan surely wins.
70 - Runs made by Kane Williamson in this match- which are 2nd most for a New Zealand captain in a T20I. McCullum's 74 vs England in February 2013 are the most runs in a T20I match by a Kiwi skipper.
57 - Number of T20I Matches Pakistan has won- which is conveniently the most for any team with South Africa (49) and Sri Lanka (43) following Pakistan. Their win/loss ratio (1.583) is also the best for any team in T20Is.
90 - Wickets Shahid Afridi has taken in his T20I career- most for any bowler in this format. Umar Gul and Saeed Ajmal with 85 each are next on the list. Afridi's wickets in T20 format (including domestic matches) are 211, which are 11th most among all bowlers around the globe.
0 - Number of bowlers from New Zealand before Adam Milne to take four wickets in a T20I game and end on losing side. Overall there have been 23 instances of a player taking four or more wickets but could not win the game.
4/37 – Adam Milne's figures in this match- his personal best in T20 career (including domestic matches). In International T20 games, he had earlier never taken more than two wickets.
8/12 - Number of T20Is Pakistan have now won against New Zealand- which is 2nd most for them against any team. Their win/loss ratio of 2.0 in T20Is against New Zealand is best among all teams excluding Zimbabwe. New Zealand's 8 losses against Pakistan are also the 2nd most for them against any team. They have lost 10 T20Is to South Africa and 8 each to Pakistan and England.
1537 - Runs Guptill has scored in T20I career which are 3rd most for any player. Umar Akmal has made 1445 runs in T20Is and is 8th on the list.
0 - Number of T20Is Pakistan had played in January in any year before this game. Pakistan has now played 97 matches and this was their first in the month of January.
0 - Also the number of defeats New Zealand had suffered before this one in T20Is in the month of January. They had played 4 games prior to today and won all of them.
66 - Percent of Matches Pakistan has won when Shahid Afridi takes 2 or more wickets. Shahid Afridi has taken 2 or more wickets 21 times and Pakistan won 14 of them.
75 - Percent Matches Pakistan has won when Shahid Afridi makes 20 or more runs. He has crossed teen scores on 29 times in his career and Pakistan was successful on 21 occasions.
10-11-10-11-10 - the number of dots enforced by Pakistani bowlers in the order they came to bowl. Indeed they had a game plan.
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