Pakistan beat Kiwis, enter T20 WC final

New Delhi: Pakistan entered the final of the Twenty20 World Championship after beating New Zealand by six wickets in the semi-final at the Newlands Stadium in Cape Town on Saturday.

Chasing a target of 144, the Pakistanis got off to a blistering start and were never troubled by an unusually sloppy New Zealand bowling and fielding.

After the opening pair of Mohammad Hafeez and Imran Nazir added 60 runs by the seventh over, there was only one way New Zealand could have got back into the match and that was if the mercurial Asians self destructed.

But that was not to be as a poor display in the field saw the Kiwi fielders dropping two easy chances. The first to be given a reprieve was Imran Nazir when he was dropped off Jacob Oram by Ross Taylor. The batsman celebrated his life by hitting Oram for two sixes in the same over.

The second chance was in the 19th over when substitute Nathan McCullum dropped Pakistan skipper Shoaib Malik off Jeetan Patel but by then the final script of the match was already there for all to see.

Though Younis Khan and Shahid Afridi failed to fire, the target was not too tough for the Pakistani top order as the winning runs came with seven balls still in hand when Malik lifted Patel for a six over the midwicket boundary.

Earlier, New Zealand won the toss and got off to a decent start but faltered in the middle overs losing wickets regularly to end with a score of 143-8.

The opening pair of Lou Vincent and Brendon McCullum added 44 runs in 6.2 overs when the match was interrupted by rain and after resumption, the Kiwi batsmen seemed to lose their concentration as the Pakistani bowlers struck quickly to reduce the Kiwis to 87-4 by the 14th over.

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