BENGALURU: At long last, led by the imperious Fakhar Zaman, Pakis­tan showed driving ambition and clarity of thought at the World Cup.

On a rainy Saturday here at the M. Chinnas­wa­my Stadium, in a game they needed to win to stay alive, Pakistan found a way. This time, they weren’t clueless about what needed to be done. This time, they didn’t succumb to adversity.

New Zealand had plundered Pakistan for 401-6 in their stipulated overs here in India’s Garden City.

How they responded with the bat, was a show of mental fortitude and exceptional planning, something that couldn’t have been associated with the Babar Azam-led side until probably the last week.

Pakistan master daunting chase against NZ to stay alive in last-four race

To act like that, Pakistan needed inspiration. It was provided by Fakhar — a man who many didn’t even want to be a part of the World Cup squad. Others kept dubbing him as Pakistan’s “X-factor”, waiting for his day to come.

When the day came, it came in a bundle of two. After playing lead in Pakistan’s thrashing of Bangladesh in Kolkata on Tuesday, Fakhar’s sparkling 126 not out was a knock to remember.

It set Pakistan’s course in a tricky chase and his innings saw his side well ahead of the DLS par score. When the heavens opened up, Babar’s men winning the contests by 21 runs.

The win gave Pakistan two crucial points, an improved run-rate and a ray of hope to make it to the Cup semi-finals by finishing fourth in the league standings. They are now level on points with fourth-placed New Zealand and sixth-placed Afghanistan, the other side in the mix.

Afghanistan, however, have a game in hand with Pakistan and New Zealand only having their final league fixture to come.

Third-placed Australia pushed closer to a place in the semis with their victory over beleaguered holders England in Saturday’s other game and the way they’re performing, it doesn’t seem they will be missing out on a spot.

Pakistan’s last game is against England on Saturday, by when New Zealand will already have played Sri Lanka and Afghanistan too would’ve played their ninth games. It effectively means, they’ll know what they have to do, just like against New Zealand where Pakistan had all the calculations sorted and played accordingly.

“We had it in the back of our minds that it will rain and planned accordingly,” Fakhar said during the post-match press conference.

“We sent a message to the management after 15 overs, that it is drizzling, so tell us how many overs — because we knew that before 20 overs the DLS method is not applicable, so we asked them what target we need to achieve in 20 overs.

“Of course, planning is very important at that stage, playing without planning is very difficult. We had planned yesterday also and even today we played over by over.”

Pakistan were rocked early in their chase when his fellow opener Abdullah Shafique was caught superbly by New Zealand captain Kane Williamson, but Fakhar and his skipper Babar (66 not out) stitched a blistering 194-run stand to keep Pakistan head of the par score on both occasions the match was interrupted.

The opener revealed he and his captain had assessed that the pitch was good enough for even a 400-run target to be chased. The situation, due to the rain, did not demand that though.

“As soon as Babar came out, I told him that the wicket is not swinging and if we maintain a good partnership, it will be very easy for us later,” he said. “We understood very early on that the wicket is good and we can chase the score of 400.”

Fakhar admitted Pakistan may have hit form too late in the tournament, but now they have got the rhythm.

“This team is very talented,” he said. “If you see from the beginning till now — it just that we need a rhythm, which we tend to lose over time. I think our team lacks a rhythm and when we get that rhythm then everyone plays well.”

Despite the Pakistan bowlers being smacked for 400 runs, Fakhar was of the opinion they bowled well given the conditions at play.

“Even in this match at the end the bowlers made a very good comeback,” he said. “The way the wicket was playing, I think we saved 30 to 40 runs.”

Pacer Mohammad Wasim (3-60) was the pick of the four Pakistan pacers who played the game and he too echoed Fakhar’s views.

“The wicket was really difficult to bowl,” he said. “I think they could have gone on to score 440-450 but we bowled well by the end.” He added Pakistan bowlers were getting used to the conditions here in India and that was helping them.

For their form to be of some use, fate now needs to be on Pakistan’s side for them to potentially face archrivals India in the semi-final in Kolkata.

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2023