Sri Lankan time at 11.45 a.m. , Pakistan will play New Zealand under sunny weather conditions at Eden Park in Auckland today.
The weather predicted is 25 degrees Celsius, hence, it’s a feel-good sunny day for the sub continental team who have been under the pump trailing by 2 games to nil in the 5 match T20 series.
Pakistan played their first T 20 at Christchurch under a wintery atmosphere, whilst the second game was worse at Duniden, reduced to 15 overs, due rain, and a cloudy ambience with the weather dropping to 9 degrees.
Incidentally, even black caps skipper Michael Bracewell stated it was very cold.
Will the change in the weather make it better for Pakistan today? They have tagged their new look squad for the T20 format as the post era of Babar Azzam and Mohd Rizwan after their early exit from their loss-making Champions Trophy this month.
Mohd Harris and Hassan Nawaz, the newfound openers, have struggled with pace and bounce. Hence, stitching a good power play score seems a distant call so far.
The rest of the top order only seem to be numbers and not scorers.
Skipper Salman Aghar, his deputy Shadab Khan, and senior seamer Shaheen Afridi look impressive, but the new players must put their hands up and be counted today playing to likable subcontinent weather conditions.
Pakistan is a team that must not be tagged as pushovers because they are talented and are capable of spoiling the happiness of even the big wigs on their day.
Dressing room news was discouraging as the media reported a rift between Shaheen Afridi and the rest of the players over team selection and implementation including the selection of the overall squad tagged as the post era of the two greats Rizwan and Barbar.
Pakistan is missing Fakhar Zaman due to injury, whilst Naseem Shah, too, on the bench, is a dent.