Asia Cup | Haris, spin quartet hearth Pakistan previous Oman in opener

Oman’s reckless batting couldn’t maintain up a candle to its disciplined bowling effort as Pakistan clinched a 93-run win regardless of scoring a middling 160 in its Asia Cup skirmish on the Dubai International Cricket Stadium right here on Friday.

After displaying a glimpse of struggle with 40 runs for the lack of two wickets within the PowerPlay, Oman was decreased to 49 for six by the midway stage of the innings. No. 3 batter Hammad Mirza confirmed promise with a 23-ball 27, punching Pakistan’s tempo ace Shaheen Afridi for a 4 and sweeping left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz for a six, however ran out of endurance when he went sweeping Sufiyan Muqeem from broad outdoors off to supply the slip fielder a fast seize.

Pakistan’s spin quartet of Saim Ayub, Abrar Ahmed, Nawaz and Muqeem was too scorching for Oman to deal with. Saim, the part-timer, deceived Oman skipper Jatinder Singh with one which spun away to knock the off-stump and foxed Aamir Kaleem with dip. Muqeem and Nawaz joined the act earlier than pacers Shaheen and Faheem Ashraf cleaned up the tail. The final batting pair of Shakeel Ahmed and Samay Shrivastava resisted for 27 balls, nevertheless it was a dropping battle.

Earlier, the going wasn’t straightforward for Pakistan with the bat. Mohammad Haris (66, 43b, 7×4, 3×6) needed to navigate by the brambles. The flashy right-hander’s strike charge of 153.48 belied his preliminary wrestle, which included six false pictures off the primary 18 balls he confronted. But when he deposited medium-pacer Sufyan Mehmood over deep midwicket for a six to usher in a 32-ball half-century, and slammed the subsequent supply to the boundary by the identical area, that interval of strife was nicely behind him.

Haris ultimately perished taking part in a reverse-sweepto a supply that pitched nicely outdoors leg-stump, and skipper Salman Ali Agha fell to a rank full toss subsequent ball. With the innings dropping steam after a raft of poor pictures, Nawaz and Fakhar Zaman salvaged the late overs and Pakistan’s below-par present with the bat.

The scores: Pakistan 160/7 in 20 overs (Mohammad Haris 66, Shah Faisal 3/34, Aamir Kaleem 3/31) bt Oman 67 in 16.4 overs (Hammad Mirza 27, Saim Ayub 2/8, Sufiyan Muqeem 2/7, Faheem Ashraf 2/6). Toss: Pakistan; PoM: Haris.