T20 World Cup: Pakistan stay alive with 7-wicket win over Canada

Mohammad Rizwan and captain Babar Azam starred as Pakistan stayed alive at the T20 World Cup with a seven-wicket win over Canada on Tuesday.

Rizwan and Babar put on a match-winning second-wicket partnership of 63 as Pakistan reached their goal of 107 with 15 balls remaining, knowing that loss would send them to an unexpected first-round exit.

In his 29th T20 international half-century, opener Rizwan finished unbeaten at 53 off 53 balls with two fours and a six, while Babar scored 33 off the same number of balls with one four and a six.

Earlier, despite opener Aaron Johnson striking his sixth international fifty, Pakistan held Canada to 106-7.

Pakistan, the 2009 champions and 2022 runners-up, dropped their opening two Group A games.

After being humiliated by the United States in a super-over match, they lost to India by six runs in a match where they were unable to reach a modest target of 120 runs.

A victory on Tuesday at the same Nassau County International Stadium that they lost to India would not be enough to guarantee a spot in the Super Eights for the second round.

Johnson showed his attacking intent right away, hitting two consecutive boundaries off of Shaheen Shah Afridi’s opening two deliveries.

The 33-year-old opener, who was born in Jamaica, reached 52 off 44 balls with four boundaries and four sixes before Naseem Shah clean bowled him out in the 14th over with the score at 73-6.

Johnson was the only player in the top six to score more than ten runs, while Pakistan’s seamers were consistently taking wickets.

With a delivery speeding at 141 km/h, Mohammad Amir clean bowled Navneet Dhaliwal (four), cutting through the opener’s defenses.

After giving up 10 runs in his opening over, Shaheen Shah Afridi managed to dismiss Pargat Singh (two) and Nicholas Kirton (one) with a brilliant throw from Imad Wasim.

After 10 overs, Canada was at 55-5 when Haris Rauf dismissed Ravinderpal Singh (nought) and Shreyas Movva (two), for his 100th wicket in the format, in the span of three balls.

Following Johnson’s out, Canada found it difficult to accelerate and managed to score just 14 more runs off 20 balls before captain Saad Bin Zafar (10) top-edged Amir to Mohammad Rizwan behind the stumps.

Rauf claimed 2-26, while Amir finished with 2-13.

After defeating the USA by 12 runs and defeating Ireland by 12 runs, Canada has two points.

With four points apiece, India and the United States top the Group A rankings.