16th June, 1999: New Zealand Bow Down to Shoaib Akhtar in 1999 World Cup Semis

When one talks about the 1999 World Cup, almost everyone thinks about the semi-final between Australia and South Africa, which the former won, but conveniently forgets about the match between Pakistan and New Zealand.

In a lopsided encounter, Pakistan thrashed the Kiwis to enter the final. After opting to bat first, New Zealand were mostly on the back foot, largely due to the efforts of Shoaib Akhtar, who bowled at searing pace and yorked out three opposition batsmen.

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He got rid of danger man Nathan Astle early on in the innings that set the tone for the Pakistanis. Such was his impact on the match, that despite looking an ordinary performance on paper, he still managed to bag man of the match award for his excellent bowling efforts.

He helped restrict the Kiwis to 241/7 in 50 overs. The highest score of the innings came from Roger Twose, who scored 46. At some level, New Zealand were also helped by 47 extras they bowled.

But all this did not come into play as Pakistan went on to win the match in utmost comfortable fashion.

Pakistan went on to win the match by 9 wickets, with star of the show being opener Saeed Anwar, who scored an unbeaten 113, and Wajahatullah Wasti, who made 84 valuable runs.

The wicket in the innings came from Chris Cairns, who was also pick of the bowlers. More importantly, Cairns had also contributed with the bat, and had scored 44 from 48 deliveries.