Pakistan bat; New Zealand rest Boult, Henry

Toss Pakistan chose to bat v New Zealand
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details

New Zealand made two changes to the XI that lost the first T20 in Auckland © Getty Images

Pakistan have won the toss and opted to bat in the second T20 in Hamilton. Shahid Afridi said he expected the surface to be good for batting. Kane Williamson said he would have chosen to bat first also.

New Zealand have rested two of the quicks who played in Auckland, giving Trent Boult and Matt Henry the game off. Ross Taylor comes back into the middle order, and Mitchell McClenaghan plays as one of the two frontline fast-bowling options, alongside Adam Milne. Spin-bowling allrounders Mitchell Santner and Todd Astle both play, which means New Zealand bat deep – Astle expected to come in at No. 9.

Pakistan have retained the XI that won the first game.

Batsmen will have to contend with disparate boundary sizes in this match, owing to the placement of the pitch on the square. The square boundary on the western side of the oval is 75 metres, while on the eastern side it is a little over 50 metres.

The weather is expected to be fine for the duration of the encounter.

New Zealand: 1 Kane Williamson (capt), 2 Martin Guptill, 3 Colin Munro 4 Corey Anderson, 5 Ross Taylor, 6 Grant Elliott, 7 Mitchell Santner, 8 Luke Ronchi (wk), 9 Todd Astle, 10 Adam Milne, 11 Mitchell McClenaghan

Pakistan: 1 Mohammad Hafeez, 2 Ahmed Shehzad, 3 Sohaib Maqsood , 4 Shoaib Malik, 5 Umar Akmal, 6 Shahid Afridi (capt), 7 Imad Wasim, 8 Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), 9 Wahab Riaz, 10 Umar Gul, 11 Mohammad Amir

Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo’s Sri Lanka correspondent. @andrewffernando

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.


Source: ESPN Crickinfo

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