T20 World Cup: Faheem Ashraf saves Pakistan blushes against Netherlands

Colombo: Faheem Ashraf smashed an unbeaten 29 off 11 balls as Pakistan scrambled past the Netherlands by three wickets to avoid a massive shock in the curtain-raiser of the T20 World Cup on Saturday.

Pakistan were made to sweat as the Netherlands took a flurry of late wickets to leave them needing 29 off the last two overs with only three wickets in hand at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground. Faheem then hit 24, including three sixes, off a 19th over that also saw him dropped in the deep by Max O’Dowd and then completed the chase with three balls to spare.

“We had to do it the hard way,” admitted Pakistan captain Salman Agha. “We did well with the bat. We batted well earlier on but then in T20 cricket a few bad overs can change the complexion.


All credit to Faheem,” he added. “Happy with our bowling. A target of 148 we would take that any day on this kind of surface. It was a good bowling performance.”

Pakistan can ill-afford any slipups in the group stage after saying they won’t play against India on Feb 15 on government instructions and forfeiting the points in Group A. BRIEF SCORES

Netherlands 147 (Edwards 37 off 29, de Leede 30 off 25; Mirza 3/24, Ayub 2/7, Abrar 2/23, Nawaz 2/38) lost to Pakistan 148 for 7 (Farhan 47 off 31, Faheem 29 off 11; van Meekeren 2/20, Dutt 2/33) by 3 wickets.