DUNEDIN: A barrage of sixes off Finn Allen’s bat shattered records in Dunedin, as his second T20I century deflated Pakistan and helped New Zealand score 224 for a comfortable 45-run victory in the third T20I. For the third game in a row, New Zealand was put in to bat; and for the third time in a row, Pakistan failed to chase down the score, relying on Babar Azam once more, this time losing the series, which still has two games remaining.
New Zealand had been hitting hard with the bat throughout the series, and Allen took it to the next level on Wednesday, slamming 16 of their 18 sixes and scoring the greatest individual T20I score for the hosts, surpassing Brendon McCullum’s 123 from the 2012 World Cup. Allen’s 16 sixes are also the joint-highest in a T20I innings, propelling him to a 26-ball fifty and subsequently a 48-ball century.
Pakistan also aided Allen by bowling too short, even with the new ball, and the opening batsman laid into their attack with furious pulls and golf-like smashes down the pitch.
In response, only Mohammad Rizwan provided some support with his 24, but when he fell in the eighth over, no other Pakistan batsman lasted more than 10 balls while Babar was out there. Babar fell for 58 while attempting to increase the scoring as the asking rate skyrocketed and Pakistan fell short yet again.
Allen had been working hard at the top earlier as well, and with his greatest T20 performance, he now has 373 runs from five innings in the format this season. His onslaught began in the third over, when he hit consecutive sixes off Shaheen Afridi.
Haris Rauf may have felt he had a nice day when he dismissed Devon Conway in the next over, which yielded only two runs, but his second over, the last of the powerplay, was smashed for 28, with 27 of those runs coming off Allen’s bat. Whether Rauf pitched it short or long, Allen hit two fours and three sixes in the over to help New Zealand reach 67 on the powerplay.
Coming into the XI for this game, Mohammad Nawaz and Mohammad Wasim combined for two boundary-less overs, but Allen, who had already reached 50, charged against Nawaz for two sixes in the ninth over.
He surged from 72 to 91 in only five deliveries, blasting Rauf for three sixes in an over that went for 23, and went past a hundred with a six and four over covers off Afridi. All of this occurred with only seven overs remaining in the innings. Tim Seifert, who replaced the injured Kane Williamson, and Daryl Mitchell both fell in successive overs, but Allen was unstoppable. He blasted Nawaz for successive sixes in the 15th over, as well as Wasim, when the fast bowler strayed towards the pads.
Zaman finally bowled an excellent length ball that lacked velocity and halted the carnage when Allen chopped on after the preceding ball, a full toss, was hammered onto the sight screen. Allen’s 137 off 62 included five fours, which were hardly the highlight of the innings. His preference for the leg side was clear regardless of where the ball was pitched to him; 13 of his 16 sixes fell in that region, where he scored 95 (69%) of his total runs.
Wickets continued to fall after Allen’s, as New Zealand attempted to score quick runs.
Babar was left to accomplish the majority of the scoring with little assistance from the other end, despite a stiff asking rate to contend with. The promising Saim Ayub was dismissed by Tim Southee after miscuing his slower ball, but Babar and Rizwan continued the pursuit. Rizwan’s two meaty sixes would have given Pakistan optimism, as he and Babar put on 39 off 28 for the second wicket to keep them ticking at more than eight runs per over, but when Santner shot one wide of the crease after seeing Rizwan charge, Seifert completed the stumping to deny Pakistan.
