Twitter Reactions: Netizens hail Mark Chapman's brilliant century which helped New Zealand level the T20I series against Pakistan
Mark Chapman hit his first T20I century as New Zealand won the match by six wickets.
Chasing a massive target of 194 runs against a quality bowling unit of Pakistan, New Zealand lost three quick wickets of skipper Tom Latham, Will Young and Chad Boyes. The visiting team looked to be under tremendous pressure but that’s when Mark Chapman rose up to the occasion and bailed the Kiwis out of a difficult situation and eventually won the match for his team.
Notably batting first, stumper-batter Mohammad Rizwan wreaked havoc at Rawalpindi. The 30-year-old smacked 98* runs off 60 deliveries to set the tone of the match, which the middle-order batters later capitalised. Batting at number five, Iftikhar Ahmad played a brilliant cameo of 36 runs off 22 deliveries while Imad Wasim hit 31 runs off just 14 deliveries. Courtesy of their meticulous batting, Pakistan posted 193 runs on board, which looked difficult for the Kiwis to chase down, especially since many of their first-team players are currently not playing in the ongoing series due to their participating in the IPL 2023.
Now when it comes to the chase, Shaheen Shah Afridi picked up two wickets in the powerplay and kept New Zealand on their backfoot. However, Chapman showed a lot of composure and hit 11 boundaries and four sixes to help New Zealand win the match by six wickets. Credit also goes to talented all-rounder James Neesham, who was brilliant with the bat as well.
Neesham smacked 45* runs off just 25 deliveries and released pressure off Chapman whenever required. He hit four boundaries and two sixes in the process to help New Zealand chase down a mammoth total of 193 runs. Meanwhile, Chapman was later adjudged as Player of the Match and also the Player of the Series as New Zealand levelled the T20I series 2-2 after being 2-0 down.
“We are happy to have done the job today. We were 1-2 going into this game. It sort of took a little bit of adjusting as the series. To finish 2-2 is a great result. Remembering to watch the ball till the end. Jimmy came in and started hitting the ball so well,” the all-rounder said after the match as quoted by Cricbuzz.
Here's how Twitter reacted -
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