Fakhar Zaman Web-Image-Sports-Tiger

Picture Credit: Disney+ Hotstar

The second semi-final of T20 World Cup 2021, which is being played between Australia and Pakistan, kicked off with Aaron Finch winning the toss and opting to bowl first. Though the toss didn't go in their favour, the Men in Green made sure, they bat with all the positivity to get a good total on the board and they certainly achieved it.

Pakistan scored 176/4 despite batting first. The courtesy of it goes to their batting mainstay Mohammad Rizwan (67 off 52) and explosive batter Fakhar Zaman (55* off 32). While Rizwan struggled a bit throughout the innings to time the ball, Fakhar seemed to have come to the crease after getting set from the dugout itself.

In a bid to boost the run rate, Babar Azam got out in the 10th over. Pakistan were halfway down the game with 9 wickets in hand and this gave number 3 batter Fakhar the license to go all guns blazing. The southpaw too cashed in on the opportunity and didn't take much time in unleashing. He hit 3 fours and 4 sixes during his quickfire knock and all that came by making a sweet sound off his bat. Fakhar's strike was so clean that one of his fours saw umpire Chris Gaffaney escaping a serious injury.

It was the fifth ball of the 18th over bowled by Mitchell Starc. The Australian pacer bowled a lower full toss to Fakhar who swung hard on it. The latter almost blew umpire Gaffaney who was standing straight to him. Gaffaney, meanwhile, did well to remove himself from the line of the ball before it could clean him up. How fast everything happened could be understood with the fact that the ball ricocheted off Fakhar's bat at a pace of 131 kmph and Gaffaney had just 0.68 seconds to react to it.

Here is the video:

Talking about the other batter from the Pakistan side, captain Babar Azam scored 39 off 34, while Asif Ali (0) and Shoaib Malik (1) failed to impress. On the bowling department, Mitchell Starc claimed two wickets but conceded 38 runs off his four overs. Meanwhile, Pat Cummins and Adam Zampa shared the rest of the two wickets.