Shaheen, Babar guide Pakistan to T20I series win

Pakistan dominated Ireland to claim a six-wicket win in their T20 series decider in Dublin on Tuesday.Pakistan eased to their victory target of 179 with 18 balls remaining as a second-wicket partnership of 139 between Mohamed Rizwan and Babar Azam proved decisive.
Rizwan’s 56 from 38 balls was his 28th T20 fifty on the international stage, while skipper Babar smashed five sixes - including four from a Ben White over - and six fours in his 42-ball 75.
Ireland’s total of 178 for seven was built around a second-wicket partnership of 85 from 49 balls between Andy Balbirnie and Lorcan Tucker.
Tucker hit 13 fours and a six in a 41-ball 73, but Ireland failed to take full advantage of being 95 for one at the halfway stage.
Shaheen Shah Afridi produced a superb spell of three for 14 from four overs, removing Ross Adair, Neil Rock and Mark Adair.
Harry Tector’s 30 produced late defiance, but the target proved well within Pakistan’s reach, who responded from losing the opening match of the series to take it 2-1.
Shaheen, the Player of the Match, said after the match: “We tried to hit our lines and lengths and that was the reason for our success. Last two matches, we bowled too full at the start. We have a strong bowling attack and have seniors to guide each other so we just needed partnerships in bowling. For us, before World Cup, it’s important to have these games to ready ourselves and there are a few areas to improve. They’re both world class players (Babar and Rizwan) and they know how to play their role and they have done really well on this pitch.”
Babar, the Pakistan captain, said on Tuesday: “I think all the credit to Ireland batters. They played first (half), but Amir Abbas Shaheen, Hassan Ali bowled well. They were 110 at end of 11th but we took a few wickets and put pressure on them. We were good at the death. We enjoyed crowd presence and we tried to entertain them. We had good communication in the middle because we have played a lot of cricket
together; we were trying to play on our strengths with belief and aim was to match with the run rate.”

BRIEF SCORES
Pakistan 181 for 4 (Babar 75, Rizwan 56, Mark Adair 3-28) beat Ireland 178 for 7 (Tucker 73, Balbirnie 35, Tector 30*, Shaheen 3-14, Abbas 2-43) by 6 wickets.