The closing overs belonged to the batters. After a spell where the fielding side had the screws firmly tightened, Hassan Khan and Odean Smith punched back with just enough intent to tilt the mood.
Imran Tahir, with all his experience and guile, tried to choke the run rate. He went full and teasing in the 17th over, tossing one up outside off at 84.3kph. Smith saw width, stepped away, and absolutely thumped it through extra cover for four. It was a clean strike, the kind that snaps a quiet phase in an instant.
Tahir adjusted his line, darting one just outside leg as Smith walked across to help it fine. Smith missed, the ball thudded into the keeper’s gloves, and he could only respond with a cheeky smile. The intent was clear: he wasn’t going to die wondering.
At the other end, Mohammad Nabi had already done his job. His four overs went for just 25 with one wicket, a tight, disciplined spell built on subtle changes of pace. Even in his final over, he kept things under control. Smith nudged him to long-off for a single, then Hassan Khan chopped one to cover and scampered through after a moment’s hesitation. Shai Hope whipped off the bails at the keeper’s end, but Smith had made his ground; only a direct hit would have cut him down.
The real shift came when Hassan decided he’d had enough of merely surviving.
Facing Khary Pierre, who had been excellent all day, Hassan first worked him around. Inside-edges, cuts with the spin, a couple of hard-run twos – the sort of scrappy accumulation that keeps a chase or a total alive. Pierre kept attacking the stumps, mixing pace around the mid-80s kph, forcing the batters to manufacture room.
Smith did exactly that, backing away to Pierre and dinking him to long-off for a single. No fireworks there, just smart batting to keep the board ticking. Pierre looked set to close out another miserly over.
Then Hassan Khan changed the tone with one swing.
On the last ball of Pierre’s spell, with the left-armer aiming full at the stumps at 86kph, Hassan dropped to one knee and unleashed a fierce slog-sweep. The ball sailed over deep midwicket, measured at 72 metres, a clean, emphatic six that finally broke the shackles. Pierre still walked off with impressive figures of 2 for 21 from his four overs, but that final blow gave the batting side something far more valuable than just runs: belief.
In a game often decided by how teams handle those tight, nervy overs, Hassan’s last-ball six and Smith’s aggression against Tahir felt like a small but significant statement. The bowlers had dictated terms for long stretches. Suddenly, the batters were writing the script again.
