{"id":245,"date":"2022-09-02T17:19:32","date_gmt":"2022-09-02T17:19:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/?p=245"},"modified":"2022-09-02T17:19:32","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T17:19:32","slug":"asia-cup-pakistan-thrash-hong-kong-in-must-win-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/?p=245","title":{"rendered":"Asia Cup: Pakistan thrash Hong Kong in must-win game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan have stormed into the Asia Cup Super Four as they registered a massive 155-run victory against Hong Kong on Friday in Sharjah.<br \/>\nThe Men in Green will now face India on Sunday at Dubai International Stadium in the Super Four.<br \/>\nChasing a massive 194-run target, they bundled up Hong Kong for just 38 in 10.4 overs.<br \/>\nSpinners, Shadab Khan and Mohammad Nawaz, did the major damage with the bowl, as they shared seven wickets between them.<br \/>\nPakistan vice-captain Shadab ended up with the figures of four for eight in his 2.4 overs, while Nawaz bagged three wickets and just conceded five runs from his two overs.<br \/>\nPacer Naseem Shah started the proceeding as he removed captain Nizakat Khan and Babar Hayat in his second over.<br \/>\nShahnawaz Dhahni also claimed his first wicket of the tournament, when he removed Yasim Murtaza.<br \/>\nNo Hong Kong batter managed to score in the double figures. This was Pakistan\u2019s biggest win in T20I history in terms of margin.<br \/>\nEarlier, Mohammad Rizwan\u2019s unbeaten 78 and a late blitz by Khushdil Shah steered Pakistan to a challenging 193-2 against minnows Hong Kong in a do-or-die clash.<br \/>\nRizwan and Fakhar Zaman (53) put on a key stand of 116 after Pakistan lost skipper Babar Azam for nine in a match which will decide the final Super Four berth of the six-nation tournament.<br \/>\nKhushdil hit five sixes including four in the final over to finish with a flourish in his unbeaten 35 off 15 balls as Rizwan watched the blitz from the non-striker\u2019s end in a partnership of 64.<br \/>\nThe loser of the contest will go out of the tournament, which acts as a tune-up to the T20 World Cup in October-November in Australia.<br \/>\nBowlers kept the Pakistan openers under check with a disciplined line and length and spinner Ehsan Khan got the key wicket of skipper Babar Azam for nine in the third over.<br \/>\nAzam hit a boundary off Ehsan\u2019s off spin but the bowler soon got revenge with a caught and bowled to silence a largely Pakistan crowd.<br \/>\nThe left-handed Fakhar Zaman joined Rizwan, a wicketkeeper-batsman, and the two attempted to rebuild, hitting a few boundaries between them to improve the scoring rate.<br \/>\nSpinners Yasim Murtaza and Mohammad Ghazanfar kept the batsmen restricted to singles and twos on a slow and low pitch until Rizwan broke the shackles with a straight six.<br \/>\nRizwan kept chipping away and got his fifty off 42 balls to raise the bat amid raucous applause form the crowd.<br \/>\nFakhar also changed gears and reached his fifty with a towering six off Murtaza\u2019s left-arm spin, but got out next over to Ehsan after his 41-ball stay.<br \/>\nKhushdil then tore into the opposition bowling and ended the innings with three successive sixes.<br \/>\nAfghanistan, Sri Lanka \u2013 both from Group B \u2013 and India (Group A) have already made the Super Four.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan have stormed into the Asia Cup Super Four as they registered a massive 155-run victory against Hong Kong on Friday in Sharjah. The Men&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":246,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}