New Zealand captain Kane Williamson and BJ Watling dug deep to arrest the slump in their batting as they ended the first day of the deciding Test match with 229/7 on the board on Monday.
The duo not only lifted their team to some sort of a total of respect but also made sure that Yasir Shah, who started his 33rd match in the whites, still needs to wait a little while longer to achieve the distinction of being the fastest man in Test history to take 200 wickets to topple a longstanding record of 82 years set by Australian leggie Clarrie Grimmett.
But Shah managed to cause damage to the New Zealand batting. Nonetheless, skipper Kane Williamson and BJ Watling fought back hard with a 104-run stand for New Zealand who had been reduced to 72/4 at the end of the first session.
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Despite having caused some early damage with figures of 3/62, Shah couldn’t manage any more wickets on the day. The Williamson-Watling stand was a tiring one for Pakistan as the duo dug deep to help the innings gain momentum.
Their resistance was finally brought to an end by Hasan Ali who had the captain Williamson caught at short midwicket for 89 runs off 176 balls. He hit seven fours in his knock while Watling remained unbeaten and saw off the threat and would look to build on his 180-ball 42 on the second day. Right-arm spinner Bilal Asif took two wickets while debutant Shaheen Shah Afridi and Ali ended with a wicket apiece.
(Image credit-DNA India)