Abdul Samad and Hasan Nawaz added an unbroken 59 as Pakistan beat Bangladesh by six wickets in a 13-over semi-final in Nisshin. Sufiyan Muqeem, who bowled the last over in the 2023 bronze-medal loss, took 3 for 26.
Pakistan were 53 for 4 and needed 59 more in a 13-over game. Abdul Samad and Hasan Nawaz got the lot without losing another wicket, and Hasan finished it with a four off Rishad Hossain with nine balls left. The semi-final at the Korogi Sports Park in Nisshin had been cut short because the outfield was still soaked after days of rain.
It puts Pakistan’s men in an Asian Games cricket final for the first time. They play for gold on Saturday, 3 October, and the bowler who cost them a medal in 2023 did as much as anyone to get them there.
Sufiyan Muqeem bowled the last over of the bronze-medal match in Hangzhou, when Bangladesh needed 20 and got them off the final ball. On Thursday he finished with 3 for 26 from his three overs. I doubt anyone in the Pakistan dressing room brings up Hangzhou with him now.
He had Saif Hassan for 19 in the seventh over. Later he broke a stand of 53 for the fifth wicket by taking both Towhid Hridoy and Mosaddek Hossain. Hridoy had made 42 off 25 balls with four sixes and two fours, the top score of the innings. Saim Ayub bowled the captain, Litton Das, for 2, and Arafat Minhas took 2 for 23. Bangladesh finished on 111 for 7.
Sahibzada Farhan had won the toss and put Bangladesh in, and 111 was a target his batters should have handled comfortably. For a while, they didn’t.
The chase wobbled early. Farhan made 1. Maaz Sadaqat hit 15 off 7 balls and Usman Khan 14 off 9, and Saim made 21 off 12 with two sixes, but all four were gone with 53 on the board.
The game turned in the tenth over, bowled by Mustafizur Rahman. Hasan took a single off the first ball. Samad then hit a six over long-on and four fours in a row, 22 off the five balls he faced. The over cost 23, and Pakistan needed 13 from the last 18 balls.
Samad ended on 30 not out from 15 balls. Hasan was 27 not out from 22.
Neither side had played in Japan before Thursday. Rain washed out all four men’s quarter-finals, so the seeded teams went through on ranking and a semi-final was their first game of the Games.
Pakistan will meet India or Sri Lanka, who play the second semi-final later on Thursday. The final starts at 10:30am in India. Bangladesh face the losing semi-finalist for bronze at 5:30am IST the same day.
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