New Zealand thrash Pakistan again to go 2-0 up in T20 cricket series

New Zealand’s openers went on a six-hitting blitz to thrash Pakistan by five wickets and go 2-0 up in their Twenty20 cricket series.

The home side reached 137-5 with 11 balls to spare in Dunedin on Tuesday to take control of the five-match series after Pakistan posted 135-9 off 15 overs in a rain-reduced second match.

New Zealand’s highlight was a ferocious opening stand between Tim Seifert and Finn Allen in which seven of the first eight scoring shots were sixes.

Remarkably, Seifert played out a maiden off Shaheen Shah Afridi’s opening over before Allen cleared the small University Oval boundary three times in the second over, bowled by Mohammad Ali.

Seifert then smashed 26 off Afridi’s second over, including four sixes, before departing on 45 off 22 balls.

Allen fell soon afterwards for 38 off 16, with the openers hammering five sixes each.

White-ball specialist Allen said both batsmen are naturally big hitters and took a simple mindset into the run chase.

“We just looked to be positive, try and get ahead of the chase early and make it easy for our middle order to finish it off,” said Allen, who was confident they could run down the target.

“It’s kind of hard to assess in a 15-over game but defending out here is pretty tough. Those are small boundaries, so the ball tends to fly a bit here. So I think maybe 170 would have been competitive.”