Iftikhar Ahmed stabilised Pakistan’s innings after a rocky start against India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sunday. The team was 15/2 when the explosive right-hander joined Shan Masood in the middle. They stitched a half-century stand to take Pakistan to 91/3 in the 12th over.

Ahmed smashed Ravichandran Ashwin for a six and then smashed three sixes in Axar Patel’s first over of the match. After the 32-year-old was dismissed, Pakistan lost two quick wickets and was reduced to 98/5 by the 14th over. The move to promote Shadab Khan backfired as Hardik Pandya picked two quick wickets.

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Iftikhar Ahmed, a No 4 batter, scored 51 runs in 34 balls with the help of two boundaries and four sixes. Pakistan’s innings went downhill after Iftikhar Ahmed’s dismissal in the second ball of the 13th over with 01 on the board.

Pakistan bat deep with Mohammad Nawaz and Asif Ali batting at 7 and 8 for this game. But they lost 7 wickets for 120 in 16.4 overs with both Nawaz and Asif out in single digits. Shan Masood who came in at number 3 held the innings together as wickets fell one after the other at the other end. He was standing tall at 52 not out off 42 balls with 4 boundaries. A cameo of 16 runs off 8 balls by Shaheen Shah Afridi and a six by Haris Rauf in the last over ensured that Pakistan despite a slow start and a collapse in middle reached 159 for 8—with 160 to win Pakistan have given something for their bowlers to work with.

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Hardik Pandya ripped the middle order by dismissing Shadab Khan, Haider Ali and Mohammad Nawaz (Batting at 5, 6, and 7 respectively) in quick succession to have figures of 3 for 30 in his four hours.

At the start of the innings, the ball swung for Bhuvneswar Kumar and Arshdeep Singh and Pakistan would be hoping that it does the same for their new ball bowlers.