ICC World Cup 2023: Ravindra's hundred, Williamson's fifty power NZ to 401 for 6

Rachin Ravindra made a hundred with talent written in bold letters over it while Kane Williamson nearly made a century on comeback as New Zealand piled up a mammoth 401 for six against Pakistan in a crunch World Cup match here on SaturdayPakistan bowlers did not have enough variations to counter a smooth Chinnaswamy Stadium pitch as Ravindra 108 off 94 balls and Williamson 95 off 79 balls ran them ragged after the Kiwis were asked to bat firstIt was also only the second instance in this event that a team crossed the 400run mark after South Africa did that against Sri Lanka in New DelhiAlso ReadPace trio of Shami Siraj Bumrah firing on all cylindersPakistan six points need to chase the target in 352 overs to climb to the fourth spot which is with the Kiwis eight pointsThe 180 runs that Ravindra who registered his third century of the tournament and Williamson made off 142 balls for the second wicket gave New Zealand a confident launching pad after defeats in their last three matchesWilliamson and Ravindra accelerated linearly for a large part of their alliance welltaken singles and twos interspersed with those occasional hits to and over the ropesWilliamson joined the action after a 68run opening stand between Ravindra and Devon Conway and the righthand lefthand combination gave a torrid time to PakistanThey were relentless but rather methodically In fact they scored only at 590 runs per over between 11th and 20th over before pressing the accelerator in the subsequent oversAlso Read ICC World Cup 2023 Kane Williamson overtakes Stephen Fleming to become NZs leading WC runscorerEven then their batting was all about class Williamsons backfoot punch off pacer Haris Rauf that pierced the midoff region carried all the oomph quotient with it and he did not spare spinners as wellPakistan gave the containment duty to offspinner Iftikhar Ahmed but Williamson greeted him with two fours in succession iquest one through midoff and the other over midwicketRavindras offside play with zero trigger movement was a sight for the sore eyesA flowing cover drive off pacer Hasan Ali and a withering square cut off Ahmed gave a touch of elegance while a welltimed pull off Rauf that landed on the second tier stand over midon gave his innings a bit of muscleThere was a streak of innovation too when the lefthander ramped Rauf for a boundary over stumper Mohammad Rizwans headRavindra brought up a popular hundred with a single off pacer Mohammad Wasim as a good weekend crowd loudly chanted Raachin RaachinThe 90s kids would easily have visualised stands filled with that reverberating Saachin Saachin chants at that momentHowever the double barrel firing came to an end when Williamson fell well within sight of his 14th ODI hundred an attempt to clear the fence off Ahmed ended in a finely judged catch by Fakhar Zaman at longonRavindra too did not last long as his pull off Wasim was snaffled at square leg by Saud ShakeelPakistan might have thought of making a late comeback as they did against Australia a few days ago here but Mark Chapman and Daryl Mitchell gave further impetus to Kiwis innings making 57 runs off 32 balls for the fourth wicketGlenn Phillips 41 off 26 balls too chipped in with some typical beefy blows as the Black Caps innings switched on the afterburnersIn total New Zealand made 114 runs in the last 10 overs to give Pakistan a steep mountain to scale downThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever