On Day 5, Pakistan trying to climb the mountain of 319 runs

Pakistan is batting on the last day of the second test and they seem to struggling at the moment. They have been losing wickets at regular intervals and no player has been able to settle on the crease for long. Before lunch, Pakistan was 131/5. Yesterday Opener Adbullah Shafique (0) and Mir Hamza (0) both got out at a duck. At stumps on day 4, Pakistan was at 0/2.

Today, the Pakistan team lost wickets of Imam ul Haque (12), Shan Masood (35) and Skipper Babar Azam (27) cheaply. Ish Sodhi and Micheal Bracewell both have gotten two wickets each for their team.

Currently Sarfaraz Ahmed and Saud Shakeel are batting and trying to stabilize the situation. Both the players are looking for a long and consolidated partnership to take their team as close to the victory as possible.

On Day 4, after getting early wickets of the openers and Kane Williamson, Pakistan seemed to be in a be strong position before Tom Blundell and Michael Bracewell’s 127 run partnership took the game away from them and took the chasing total to a mammoth 319.

With Pakistan needing 178 runs to win and only 5 wickets in hand, New Zealand has a huge chance of turning this match and the series in their favour.

The batting performance of the hosts have not been up to the mark so far in this entire series. Skipper Babar Azam scored a century in the first innings of the previous test but haven’t been able to score much post that. Opener Abdullah Shafique hasn’t been able to score in either of the matches and have gotten out early scoring 7, 17, 19 and 0 in the four innings he batted in two Tests. The standout players of the series so far has been Sarfaraz Ahmed who returned to playing international cricket after four years and Saud Shakeel who scored a half century (55) in the previous and his maiden century (125*) in the first innings of the second test.

The Test series is tied after the first match which ended in a draw as the match was wrapped up due to bad lighting on Day 5. Both the Test matches took place in Karachi.