New Zealand beat the West Indies 3-0 in international cricket's first ever bowl-off after their series-opener Twenty20 match ended with the scores tied at 126 each here yesterday.
In a match which never lived up to the big-hitting spectacular that cricket's latest innovation is supposed to produce, New Zealand were in control for three-quarters of regulation play before a dramatic batting collapse led to the bizarre finish.
After losing the toss and being sent into bat, the West Indies had struggled in their debut Twenty20 international, losing wickets regularly as they tried to increase their scoring rate, and their 126 looked an easy target.
With Lou Vincent striking boundaries at will, New Zealand raced to 73 for two in the 10th over when Dwayne Bravo ignited the Calypso Kings' purple patch which saw five wickets fall in eight overs for 28 runs.
Bravo watched Scott Styris hit his first ball for six and then clean bowled the New Zealand batsman and added insult to injury by ruining the farewell appearance of champion all-rounder Chris Cairns.
While the home crowed urged Cairns to produce his trade mark sixes for one final time, Bravo used a touch of Cairns himself with a deft change of pace that sent the New Zealander back to the pavilion for two.
In the end, New Zealand needed 16 off the last over and it came down to a four by Shane Bond off the last ball to save the day for the home side and bring about a bowl-off, cricket's equivalent of football's penalty shootout.
Bowling two balls each, the first three of five bowlers from both sides all missed the stumps before Bond hit twice. Ian Bradshaw followed for the West Indies and failed to connect leaving a wicket from Styris on his first ball to give New Zealand an unbeatable 3-0 lead.
Cairns was unable to take a wicket in his cricket finale but he pulled off a sensational runout of Dwayne Smith with a backhand flick when following through a delivery in his first over, and took a running catch off Bond in the last over of the New Zealand innings.
Indian left-arm seamers Rudra Pratap Singh and Irfan Pathan bundled out Pakistan for 161 in 41.5 overs in the fourth one-dayer at Multan stadium yesterday.
Singh grabbed four wickets for 40 runs and Pathan took three for 26 to jolt the home side, which was sent in to bat by Indian captain Rahul Dravid before a capacity crowd.
India, already 2-1 up in the five-match series, took full advantage of the seamer-friendly conditions and the 20-year old Singh struck twice in his first six-over spell.
He took two wickets in one over in his second spell.
Pakistan skipper Inzamam-ul Haq, playing in his home town, top-scored with a painstaking 49 off 63 balls featuring seven boundaries as the home team's chances of staging a comeback from a series deficit looked grim.
Pakistan collapsed to 29-4 and later 97-5 before being bundled out.
The last match will be played in Karachi on Sunday.
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