Cricket: Black Caps seal Twenty20 series win over Pakistan with excellent win at Hamilton

Often brilliant, mostly clinical, New Zealand concluded the Twenty20 series against Pakistan with a match to spare after a nine-wicket victory at Seddon Park that somehow made it to the final.

They galloped home with four balls to spare thanks to an unbroken 129-run partnership between Tim Seifert and Kane Williamson.

Seifert, with two U-20s, would have felt he left the game against the West Indies just when things were going well.

It has made up for it in the face of an attack that offers much more than the Caribbean.

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Seifert, 84, threw and struck with ruthless efficiency, while Williamson, 57, arrived as advertised. They would be the first to acknowledge that the reason they were able to take their foot off the pedal on the last few scratches was due to the work done with the new ball by Tim Southee.

In fact, it should never have gotten as close as it did. If Wahab Riaz had received a miraculous four-hitter limit catch from Williamson to win the game, it would have been an awkward and unnecessary four-ball finish.

The only other blemish on the entries was the firing of Martin Guptill.

Guptill has been struggling to have races this summer. His hitting the ball has never been questioned, but his decision making has not been in tune with his instincts.

That was perfectly illustrated in the first three balls of the second change. Facing highly touted sprinter Haris Rauf, he cut the first ball for four, drove the next ball past the long limit, and then hit one on the rebound back to the pitcher … and ran.

Either he or his partner Seifert would have been exhausted by half a pitch if the shocked pitcher had shown an iota of composure.

On Faheem Ashraf’s first over, he hit another six longs before hitting the deep square. His 21 of 11 was a cameo that hinted at something a bit more.

That brought new daddy Williamson to the fold and it will be the last time we mention him unless the teacher brings it up himself. Truth is, he should have missed the second ball, but his snick was between the first slip and the goalie much to Haris’s chagrin.

That was Pakistan’s opportunity; his elusive finger grip on a rock face. Instead, he went for four and with him the series.

Previously, Pakistan saw a lot of new faces rushing towards them, but the result was pretty much the same.

The inexperienced men who triumphed at Eden Park gave way to stalwarts Southee, Trent Boult and Williamson, while Kyle Jamieson also entered the fold.

Pakistan again won the toss and hit and produced a remarkable facsimile of their efforts in the opener, scoring 163-6 thanks to a last-over flurry, but never convinced that it was a defensible target on such a small ground against a formidable lineup. .

The first order failed miserably again, and Abdullah Shafique highlighted the futility with his second second jump ball on the tour, again making a simple catch. You have to feel sorry for the 21-year-old whose tour so far has consisted of two weeks in quarantine and four balls in between for neither a run nor a convincing shot.

While Jacob Duffy did all the damage in Auckland, here it was Southee who continued his golden form at 4-21 in four well-directed overs.

The only difference between Hamilton and Auckland was that one guy stayed until the end. Mohammad Hafeez, fresh off a duck in Auckland, hit wonderfully, reaching 99 without losing thanks to a late surge from Jamieson’s final over.

There’s a natural reaction to being disappointed when you finish a race short of a big milestone, but Hafeez couldn’t have done more than change the rules of cricket when he faced the final ball at 93 and duly broke it over the rope.

It was the perfect punchline for a tackle where he moved through the gears without forcing the clutch.

“I never thought about my century,” he said, “I was just thinking about putting races on the board.”

Had he had a little more help from his teammates, it could have been a winning shot, not just an enjoyable one.