Odean Smith and Hassan Khan Shift Momentum in Thrilling Finish

The game had drifted into that nervy phase where every dot ball feels like a small crisis and every boundary like a jailbreak. Odean Smith and Hassan Khan, under the pump, chose the bolder route.

Imran Tahir, with all his experience and guile, tried to shut the door. At 16.6, he speared one in just outside leg. Smith shuffled across, looking to tickle it fine and missed, wearing a cheeky smile as the ball thudded through to the keeper. Tahir had won that tiny battle, but the momentum was already shifting.

The over had hinted at it. Earlier, at 16.4, Smith had stepped out to a fuller, slower ball – 81.4kph with a bit more air – and wristily drove it to the right of the bowler for a single to long-on. Nothing spectacular, but it kept things moving. Before that, Tahir erred. At 16.3 he tossed one up at 84.3kph, overpitched and outside off. Smith backed away and absolutely hammered it through extra cover for four. One mistake, ruthlessly punished.

Hassan Khan played the foil, nudging Tahir for a run at 16.2. A 79.5kph floated delivery turned into a full toss on the pads, and though he miscued the sweep to midwicket, he still collected the single. The scoreboard kept ticking, and the pressure on the bowlers kept rising.

The real crack in the bowling effort came an over earlier.

Khary Pierre had been miserly, working through his spell with discipline and control. Then came 15.6. Full, on the stumps at 86kph, and Hassan finally snapped the shackles. He dropped to one knee and launched a slogsweep over deep midwicket, a 72-metre blow that sailed into the stands. A last-ball six to end Pierre’s spell, leaving him with impressive figures of 2 for 21 from his four, but also a sting in the tail that shifted the mood.

Smith had already been busy against Pierre. At 15.5, with the left-armer attacking the stumps at 84.3kph, Smith backed away just enough to carve out room and dink a single to long-off. Earlier in the over, Hassan had worked him cleverly: 15.1 and 15.2 brought back-to-back braces, first with an inside edge towards midwicket from a 87.2kph full ball, then a cut with the spin to the left of deep backward point. No fireworks, but those twos mattered.

Mohammad Nabi, ever reliable, tried to drag things back at the other end. His final over was a study in control. At 14.5, he gave it a hint of spin at 82.6kph, and Smith respected it, knocking it calmly down to long-off for a single. At 14.6, Hassan cut off the back foot to cover at 81.1kph, hesitated with his partner, then committed to the run. The throw came in to Shai Hope at the keeper’s end; by the time he broke the stumps, Smith had scrambled home. A direct hit would have ended it for him. Instead, Nabi closed out with a tidy 4-0-25-1, but the batters walked away with the momentum.

By the time those final overs wrapped up, the story had tilted. Smith’s clean strike through extra cover, Hassan’s towering slog over deep midwicket, the hustled twos and nervy singles – they had turned a tight finish into a platform.

The bowlers had numbers to show for their work. The batters had something more valuable: a total that suddenly looked defendable.