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ICC T20 World Cup 2026: New Zealand vs Pakistan | Match 41 | Super Eight Round | Group 2 | Colombo | February 21 | Pre-Match Discussion

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90% chance of rain but by the time match starts it will get better so expect full game
 
IMO, I would drop Babar for Fakhar and drop Nafay for a specialist bowler. They went with two specialist bowlers in the last match and that is just begging for trouble against a powerful lineup like NZ.

Fakhar at 4 would be your main threat vs Santner and potentially Sodhi if they play him. He does well vs NZ too.
If it's a tricky or spinning pitch, I think dropping Nafay for Abrar would make sense. They had Faheem batting at 9 last game and I just don't see the value in extending your batting that deep at a significant expense on your bowling.
 
Asif321 said:
90% chance of rain but by the time match starts it will get better so expect full game
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We heard same thing from past week but apart from one game ( Zimbabwe vs Ireland) all matches not effected by rain. :kp
 
Among SENA teams NZ plays spin the best. They have beaten india in india even. So we cant expect them to roll over like Aussies in Pakistan.
Fakhar should come in for Nafay or Babar to counter Santner.

I would bring Abrar in for Fahim. Still think he can do more damage than Naseem who hasnt had a single game.
 
Devadwal said:
No , Match is 50-50 . NZ team is very good. I think they are going to win all three match of super -8. :kp
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Possible. Especially it rains and makes batting first difficult. If there is no further rain prediction oak will choose to bat and NZ bowl. So if there is something for the bowlers upfront Pak may struggle. Otherwise it will be Pak all the way
 
The ground is big in Premadasa, so far Farhan has scored in the small SSC ground but failed at Premadasa. The trick is to score many 2s and 3s which isnt Farhans forte. He needs to play the gaps, run hard and put away the bad ball when it inevitably comes. Others have to follow a similar template. Main thing is capitalising on the new ball, scoring becomes very difficult once the ball becomes a bit older from the 7th or 8th over onwards. One pacer and one all round pacer are enough. Also if we win the toss, we have to bat first at all costs.

Weatherwise it is showing same 30-40% odd around match time but that has been the case throughout, even if it rains it will be in short bursts unlike Kandy where the only washout happened and even then it was drizzling very lightly and most commentators said we could have had a match. The weather for our Eng matchup in Kandy looks great so far too.
 
RedwoodOriginal said:
You sure? I read on ESPNCricinfo that India will play their semifinal in Mumbai and Pakistan in Colombo regardless of position
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Not sure, maybe India will play the semi at Wankhede but there will be an issue if India Pakistan end up at #1 or #2.
 
G0rmintAunty said:
The ground is big in Premadasa, so far Farhan has scored in the small SSC ground but failed at Premadasa. The trick is to score many 2s and 3s which isnt Farhans forte. He needs to play the gaps, run hard and put away the bad ball when it inevitably comes. Others have to follow a similar template. Main thing is capitalising on the new ball, scoring becomes very difficult once the ball becomes a bit older from the 7th or 8th over onwards. One pacer and one all round pacer are enough. Also if we win the toss, we have to bat first at all costs.

Weatherwise it is showing same 30-40% odd around match time but that has been the case throughout, even if it rains it will be in short bursts unlike Kandy where the only washout happened and even then it was drizzling very lightly and most commentators said we could have had a match. The weather for our Eng matchup in Kandy looks great so far too.
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So we have a full match on cards
 
Pakistan's head to head against NZ is very good in the past. They should be winning this.
 
sithb said:
Will Pakistan be facing Zimbabwe this tournament? Time for Babar Azam to come good.
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Two Super Eight groups:

Group 1: India, South Africa, West Indies, Zimbabwe
Group 2: England, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Pakistan
 
NZ have a lot of power hitters. Pakistan bowling looked very weak against India. You cannot judge the quality of the attack against minnow teams as opposed to the test playing nations. The batting again is nothing special except for Farhan. Ayub always flatter to decieve. Babar will consume dot balls again if he bats. NZ would be clear favorites. Could be NZ and SL going through.
 
Siefert and Finn could give the pakistan bowlers headaches. There are also other excellent T20 players like Phillips, Ravindra, Chapman, Santner, which gives them plenty batting power. Shadab is useless as a bowler against quality opposition. Mirza looks good by its left to be seen how he performs. He cannot do worse than Shaheen. (y)
 
Inswinging Yorker said:
NZ have a lot of power hitters. Pakistan bowling looked very weak against India. You cannot judge the quality of the attack against minnow teams as opposed to the test playing nations. The batting again is nothing special except for Farhan. Ayub always flatter to decieve. Babar will consume dot balls again if he bats. NZ would be clear favorites. Could be NZ and SL going through.
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Sri Lanka is missing Hasaranga and Pathirana, their bowling attack has been completely decimated. Zimbabwe just aced a chase easily against them at a ground where it's quite easier to defend a score like 180.

New Zealand is in terrific form, specially batting form. We will have to play out of our skins to win tomorrow against a really professional NZ side. I am not really that hopeful of this game, unless NZ batting collapses out of nowhere.
 
shah9425 said:
How is the weather forecast
@G0rmintAunty ?
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Thunderstorms currently going on which were predicted for 2 hours ago but just started, same prediction for tomorrow, around 90%. You can never be sure with the weather here till about a couple of hours before the match, so lets see but could be a washout.
 
harshjoshi87 said:
Rana bhai, NZ have been playing in spinning conditions since January 11. They will be tough to beat.
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It’s a sudden shift during an ongoing tournament. I’m backing Pakistan to take this as Kiwis have to adapt straight away.
 
Rana said:
It’s a sudden shift during an ongoing tournament. I’m backing Pakistan to take this as Kiwis have to adapt straight away.
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Shadab full tosser and Saim Talent will do their usual magic... don't worry
 
The way i see it....
the wickets in RPS will suit Pak especially the spinners and guy like Fahem Ashraf much more than the angrez.

Looking at Usman Tarik - i feel you need tremendous bodily strength to pause like he does, for the length of time he does and then bowl the delivery without a wind up, that itself is incredible.

NZ will have no clue how to handle him. if your batting comes good, thats your best chance.

Bat first, score big, choke them on spin
 
Pakistan have one batsmen in form farhan rest are struggling to put some runs up farhan needs to keep firing otherwise scoreboard will look like India match i can see pakistan dropping nafay after one game and bringing fakhar in if that is a case drop saim to no3 and open with fakhar because he is another player who is useless in middle order enough has been said about the bagharat babar and faheem two politicaly backed players who can not be dropped best Henson can do is what he did in the last match keep him down the order ship him his awkaat
 
Saim Ayub has gone off the radar but his performances with the bat have been atrocious. If and only if he fails against NZ I would not be against pushing Babar to open with Farhan and bringing in Fakhar. We cannot carry a non performing opener with a fragile batting line up especially when the other opener is a minnow basher.
 
BouncerGuy said:
Haha... Rashid is sitting with Ahmed shahzad and Amir plus 1 comedian. Expect such shenangans from them.
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India are not unbeatable especially in SL. The problem is we have 2 openers, one talented but out of form (Saim), one minnow basher slogger who can only score against Namibia and USA (Farhan), a good bat completely out of position, confidence and form (Babar) and a tulla minnow basher averaging 20 and SR 120 captaining in Salman. If we can sort out the top 4 we can more than match India. The bowling is not an issue.
 
RizwanT20Champ said:
Saim Ayub has gone off the radar but his performances with the bat have been atrocious. If and only if he fails against NZ I would not be against pushing Babar to open with Farhan and bringing in Fakhar. We cannot carry a non performing opener with a fragile batting line up especially when the other opener is a minnow basher.
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We carried rizwan and babar for years. He's far better than these 2.
 
Lets take 1 game at a time and not jump ahead , NZ are a strong team Pakistan need to sort their batting to assert themmselves
 
khyberlion said:
We carried rizwan and babar for years. He's far better than these 2.
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Saim is ok if fakhar play maybe saim can bat at 3 he's done well with the ball and he can score quickly if he gets in babar just wastes over after over put pressure on the whole team
 
zahid01 said:
Saim is ok if fakhar play maybe saim can bat at 3 he's done well with the ball and he can score quickly if he gets in babar just wastes over after over put pressure on the whole team
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Fakhar is finished though still better than babar.
 
If the game does happen, I guarantee Farhan will:

1) Either score less than 30
2) and/or at SR less than 130

Less said about captain tulla the better. I rewatched the game against Namibia and it was shameful how Farhan was celebrating like he scored against prime Australia especially when he got out for 0 in our biggest game 2 days prior. If it was Babar who scored and celebrated like that vs a minnow some posters would have started frothing at the mouth.
 
RizwanT20Champ said:
Stop talking about Rizwan, he was a keeper and not even in the team now. We reached SF of 2021 WC and F of 2022 WC when RizBar were opening btw.
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Just that you are aware going final or semi is doesn't mean you have won the wc, let me remind you that both opened in the last wc and didn't go past the group stage.
 
khyberlion said:
Just that you are aware going final or semi is doesn't mean you have won the wc, let me remind you that both opened in the last wc and didn't go past the group stage.
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Ok I hope you will not do bhangra over anything short of a WC win this time then
 
Nasty Naz said:
IMO, I would drop Babar for Fakhar and drop Nafay for a specialist bowler. They went with two specialist bowlers in the last match and that is just begging for trouble against a powerful lineup like NZ.

Fakhar at 4 would be your main threat vs Santner and potentially Sodhi if they play him. He does well vs NZ too.
If it's a tricky or spinning pitch, I think dropping Nafay for Abrar would make sense. They had Faheem batting at 9 last game and I just don't see the value in extending your batting that deep at a significant expense on your bowling.
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Agree you need to go in with proper players. Not sure about Faheem, I mean Naseem Shah can also hit a couple of balls but is a much better bowler. If the pitch has some pace, you prefer Naseem over Faheem, only issue is that Naseem has not played a single game.
 
It’s gonna rain before the game . So may be a delayed start but expecting full game
 
NZ is a very good cricket team and were considered one of the favorites coming into the tournament, theres no doubting that. But the fact that Vegas has NZ at 59% is missing the mark by a long shot! The fact that this game is held in Sri Lanka and not in India (or most other places) makes Pak favorites (I'd put us at -120 or implied win probability of 54%~) ! I also understand the hesitation on betting on one of the most fragile batting lineups in world cricket, but fortunately for Pak, in this format only one batsman needs to fire to get a good team total. I'd almost exclude the india game altogether from factoring into future predictions as these guys mentally choked against them, both because of the aura of the indian team and because of non-cricketing reasons that are clearly getting to them and they'll have to get over (the opponent not have basic decency/sporting spirit that is custom is almost every other sport). Vs NZ we wont have these issues. Hoping the game happens so we have the opportunity for 2 points.
 
Tomorrow Nz will thrash Pakistan.... its another humiliation for Pak team... NZ is in tremendous form
 
Pakistan has a few openers Farahn, Saim, Babar, one no.3 Agha. Then a bunch of no.8s pretending to be middle order batsmen. So they could collapse in a heap which they have been doing religiously over the last 1 year. Either top order or middle order collapse.
 
Pakistan has the worst 4 to 7 since 2025. That is where pakistan's "bits and pieces" players who can neither score big nor score quickly enough show their "prowess". They played a lot of minnows during this phase

Screenshot-2026-02-20-091146.jpg
 
Mike Hesson shared following thoughts in the Pre-Match presser today:

On Team Progress and Performance
"Oh, look, we've certainly spent the last 6 months getting to this point. So, you know, the fact we made the Super Eights is the position we wanted to find ourselves in. We've played some pretty good cricket. I think we've won eight of our last 10 games. And we've had many different players stand up at different times. So confident with where the group is at."

On Playing Conditions and Adjustments
"We didn't place so well out on this surface last time. So looking forward to putting that right tomorrow. And I think it's probably just adjusting to the conditions a little bit better than we did last time here. But outside of that, you know boys have prepared well."

On Mark Chapman and the Pakistan Threat
"Mark Chapman has an incredible record against Pakistan both in Pakistan and at home for him. So, he's faced a lot of our bowlers and he's had some success. But this pitch will bring some different challenges and we'll have some different thoughts around how we might find a way of trying to subdue him a little bit, but he's certainly not the only threat. There's plenty of them. So, we won't be focused just on one."

On Psychological Edges in Cricket
"I don't think games are won or lost psychologically. I think they won through skill. New Zealand have played a huge amount on the subcontinent in recent times. The Sri Lanka it tends to spin a little bit sharper than it does in India as a general rule. I don't believe anyone's got a psychological edge. What's happened in the past is in the past, we're looking forward to starting the super eights well tomorrow."

On Babar Azam’s Role at Number Four
"Well, look, it's what the role the team requires. And Bub is well aware of that. I think he's well aware strike rate in the power play in World Cups is less than 100 so in T20s. So clearly that's not a role that we think here we need. We think he's a fine player through the middle if required in terms of if we're in a little bit of trouble. Once he gets himself set he can increase his strike rate at that point. We wanted some batsmanship through the middle. And he certainly brings that for us. The other day we got to the 12th over mark and at that point Babar Azam is not the best person to come in. Bob is actually the first to acknowledge that he knows that he's got a certain set of skills that the team require and there are certain times where other players can perform that role more efficiently."

On Abrar Ahmed and Spin Options
"Nawaz is one of the best performing spinners in the world in T20 cricket. Since Shadab's come back, his figures have been exceptional. Saim Ayub is already in the side anyway and obviously has the ability to bowl the carrom ball. We have six spin bowlers, there are times where we don't need that many. There could well be conditions in this tournament where we might go spin heavy again or even more spin heavy than we already do. And we know that Abrar would be ready if required."

On the Top Order Approach
"Top order has been exceptional in three of the games. We played on a different surface at SSC the other day and it was actually quite two paced and I thought we absorbed a bit of pressure in that power play. Well, if we went too hard too soon, we could have found ourselves in a little bit of trouble. Conditions didn't really allow that. And then once the seam got softer, it got easier."

On Selection Decisions (Shaheen and Naseem Shah)
"Look we picked the best team to play that particular game for Pakistan and we made a call that Salman Mehran was coming in for Shaheen and he bowled incredibly well. Conditions have dictated that we're only playing two seamers and often those two seamers are not even bowling their full compliment. We also know that if conditions suggest that we need more seam, probably more Premadasa sorry probably more Pallekele than here, then we know that Naseem is bowling incredibly well and we've got options but we'll pick the best team for the conditions."

On Saim Ayub and Team Consistency
"Like I said, we've won eight of our 10 games. The series before this Saim was the highest run scorer. So, we certainly don't look at one or two games in isolation. We know that Saim if he gets it right will take the game away from anyone. I wouldn't expect huge changes. We've built our rankings increase over the last 8 months around consistency and making subtle changes, but we weren't making big changes."

On the Rumored "Heated Discussion" with Salman Ali Agha
"I've actually got sent that video and you guys really got that wrong. So I'll talk you through what happened. I was going over to talk to Salman about and get Nawaz to put the pads on as a left-hander and Agha was upset that he just got out. So he threw the bottle into the ground. Nothing to do with the conversation we were having. It was a really simple conversation that often he wasn't even part of. He was just standing there being pretty disappointed that he was out and it just happened to be in the crossfire. Amazing what people can interpret sometimes."
 
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