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| Fourth defeat to New Zealand in a row: Babar has also brought Pakistan to first place with him |
In the five-match series, Pakistan won the first position in the international ODI cricket rankings by defeating New Zealand in the fourth ODI match in a row.
In case of winning the fifth match of this series, Pakistan will go ahead of Australia and India on the points table.
Currently, Pakistan, Australia, and India are in a row with 113 points, but Pakistan has got the first position in the ICC rankings for the first time due to its better average.
Now Pakistan will get more advantage over India and Australia with 115 points in case of victory in one more match. If Pakistan loses the last ODI match against New Zealand then in that case Pakistan will move to the third position in the ranking with 112 points.
Description of today's match
In today's match, Pakistan batted first and scored 334 runs, while in reply, the New Zealand team was bowled out for just 232 runs in 43.4 overs. Thus, Pakistan won this match by 102 runs.
The highlight of today's match was Pakistan captain Babar Azam's 18th century, who scored 107 runs off 117 balls. Babar Azam also holds the record for the fastest 5000 runs.
In today's match with Pakistan, Agha Salman scored 58 runs and Shan Masood scored 44 runs and Iftikhar Ahmed scored 28 runs.
New Zealand captain Tom Latham scored 60 runs while Mark Chapman scored 46 runs. Daryl Mitchell 34, Tom Blundell 23, Will Young 15, and James Neesham 11 could score from Kiwi's side.
New Zealand's Matt Henry guided three Pakistan players to the pavilion while Ben Lister and Ash Sodhi took a wicket each.
For Pakistan, Usama Mir took four wickets, Muhammad Wasim three, Haris Rauf two, and Shaheen Shah Afridi took one wicket.
"First position has always been our dream"
Imamul Haq, the opener of the Pakistan cricket team, thanked God for Pakistan's first position in one of his tweets and said that number one has always been his dream.
Sports journalist Abdul Ghaffar tweeted that Pakistan has secured the first position in the ranking of ODI matches while Babar Azam has become the best batsman in ODI matches.
After the match, when Babar Azam was asked if he had brought the team to first place, he said that it was possible with the grace of God and the hard work of the team.
It was tweeted from a Twitter handle called Grass Root Cricket that when Babar Azam made a place in the national team on May 5, 2015, Pakistan was the ninth-ranked team, but today under his captaincy, this team has become the first-ranked team.
Pakistan Cricket Board shared the video of Babar Azam's century from its Twitter handle, thanks to which Pakistan managed to get the first position.