5 reasons why Pakistan can beat Zimbabwe in the 1st T20I

5 reasons why Pakistan can beat Zimbabwe in the 1st T20I: Pakistan’s limited-overs tour of Zimbabwe will begin from September 27. The T20I series will include 2 matches with the first T20I taking place at Harare on Sunday. Shahid Afridi and his men will look to continue their good run of form in T20Is and will start building up for World T20 2016 which will be played in India. While for Zimbabwe, they would like to revenge their T20I series loss in Pakistan in which they were whitewashed. Elton Chigumbura will be leading the side after he had missed the last T20I match against India.

On the eve of the first match, let’s have a glance at 5 reasons why Pakistan can beat Zimbabwe in the 1st T20I:

1. Current form:

The Pakistani team is coming into this series after defeating Sri Lanka across all the formats in the emerald island. Most importantly, Pakistan have won the last four T20I matches they have played. In Pakistan, they had defeated the visiting Zimbabwe side in the 2-match T20I series by 2-0 while on their tour to Sri Lanka they whitewashed the Lankan lions as well in the shortest format of the game. Afridi and Co. are seemingly high on confidence. They are looking like the red-hot favorites coming into this match.

2. Opening pair of Mukhtar and Shehzad:

The opening pair of Mukhtar Ahmed and Ahmed Shehzad just believes in one mantra and that is to go out on the 22 yards and blast the bowlers right from the word go. Their brilliant individual records against Zimbabwe are posing ominous signs for the hosts. Shehzad has scored 241 runs in 4 T20Is against Zimbabwe at 80.33 with three fifties. While Mukhtar Ahmed has hammered 145 runs against them and was the Man-of-the-Series when these two sides last met in the 2-match T20I series in Pakistan.

3. Superior record:

Till now, Pakistan has always outplayed Zimbabwe whenever the two teams have locked horns in T20I cricket. Their first face-off came in 2008 and since then both the teams have played against each other on 7 occasions and in all the matches Pakistan has emerged as the winner. At Harare, both the teams have faced each other in 4 matches and Zimbabwe has been unable to win even a single game. Pakistan has always been successful in T20I cricket and it’s a format which suits them the most. And if we go by the stats as well then Pakistan will win the 1^st T20I match.

4. Pace trio of Riaz, Tanvir and Irfan:

Wahab Riaz, Sohail Tanvir and Mohammad Irfan will form the core of the Pakistani bowling line-up against Zimbabwe. All the three left-arm bowlers have their very own specialty and together they can hunt the Zimbabwean batters in pack. Wahab has been in lethal form and is a master in bouncing out the batsmen. Riaz can reverse-swing the ball as well. While the 7 feet 1 inch tall, Mohammad Irfan is always a threat with his height and pace. In Sohail Tanvir, Pakistan have a bowler whose action is hard to pick by and he can swing the ball both ways.

5. Zimbabwe’s lack of confidence:

The Zimbabwean team seems to be the hot-dog in a game but then as the match starts heading into the crunch situations, they start losing the plot. Now it has been a rather stretched story when they loose the match even after looking like the front-runners throughout the game. All these defeats have dented their self-confidence which gets reflected in their game as well. This year, they have played 5 T20I matches and have been able to win only 1 while have ended up on the losing side on 4 occasions.