Mohammad Haris celebrates his fifty.
| Photo Credit: AP
Oman’s reckless batting couldn’t hold up a candle to its disciplined bowling effort as Pakistan clinched a 93-run win despite scoring a middling 160 in its Asia Cup skirmish at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium here on Friday.
After showing a glimpse of fight with 40 runs for the loss of two wickets in the PowerPlay, Oman was reduced to 49 for six by the halfway stage of the innings. No. 3 batter Hammad Mirza showed promise with a 23-ball 27, punching Pakistan’s pace ace Shaheen Afridi for a four and sweeping left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz for a six, but ran out of patience when he went sweeping Sufiyan Muqeem from wide outside off to offer the slip fielder a quick grab.
Pakistan’s spin quartet of Saim Ayub, Abrar Ahmed, Nawaz and Muqeem was too hot for Oman to handle. Saim, the part-timer, deceived Oman skipper Jatinder Singh with one that spun away to knock the off-stump and foxed Aamir Kaleem with dip. Muqeem and Nawaz joined the act before pacers Shaheen and Faheem Ashraf cleaned up the tail. The last batting pair of Shakeel Ahmed and Samay Shrivastava resisted for 27 balls, but it was a losing battle.
Earlier, the going wasn’t easy for Pakistan with the bat. Mohammad Haris (66, 43b, 7×4, 3×6) had to navigate through the brambles. The flashy right-hander’s strike rate of 153.48 belied his initial struggle, which included six false shots off the first 18 balls he faced. But when he deposited medium-pacer Sufyan Mehmood over deep midwicket for a six to usher in a 32-ball half-century, and slammed the next delivery to the boundary through the same region, that period of strife was well behind him.
Haris eventually perished playing a reverse-sweepto a delivery that pitched well outside leg-stump, and skipper Salman Ali Agha fell to a rank full toss next ball. With the innings losing steam after a raft of poor shots, Nawaz and Fakhar Zaman salvaged the late overs and Pakistan’s below-par show with the bat.
The scores: Pakistan 160/7 in 20 overs (Mohammad Haris 66, Shah Faisal 3/34, Aamir Kaleem 3/31) bt Oman 67 in 16.4 overs (Hammad Mirza 27, Saim Ayub 2/8, Sufiyan Muqeem 2/7, Faheem Ashraf 2/6). Toss: Pakistan; PoM: Haris.
Published – September 13, 2025 12:00 am IST