{"id":295235,"date":"2026-02-21T13:36:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T13:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/295235\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T13:36:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T13:36:09","slug":"live-pakistan-opt-to-bat-against-new-zealand-icc-mens-t20-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/295235\/","title":{"rendered":"LIVE: Pakistan opt to bat against New Zealand | ICC Men&#8217;s T20 World Cup, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pakistan v New Zealand<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.icc-cricket.com\/tournaments\/mens-t20-world-cup-2026\/matches\/268112\/new-zealand-vs-pakistan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Scorecard<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha has won the toss and elected to bat first in the Super Eight clash against New Zealand at the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.<\/p>\n<p>Threat of rain looms over the match. It was drizzling during the toss and covers are back on.<\/p>\n<p>In spin-heavy conditions, Pakistan has brought in Fakhar Zaman. New Zealand captain Mitchell Santner has bounced back from an upset stomach and will start in the all-important clash.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan: Sahibzada Farhan, Saim Ayub, Salman Agha (c), Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman, Usman Khan (wk), Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Faheem Ashraf, Salman Mirza, Usman Tariq<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand: Tim Seifert (wk), Finn Allen, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Daryl Mitchell, Mitchell Santner (c), James Neesham, Matt Henry, Ish Sodhi, Lockie Ferguson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pakistan v New Zealand Scorecard Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha has won the toss and elected to bat&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[41840,41838,41836,41855,122208,41860,41841,41835,41859,122206,41842,41837,122211,111,43,139,69,122207,122209,41839,122210],"class_list":{"0":"post-295235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-cricket-breaking-news","9":"tag-cricket-headlines-today","10":"tag-cricket-news","11":"tag-cricket-series-updates","12":"tag-cricket-world-cup-headlines","13":"tag-cricket-world-cup-news","14":"tag-cricket-world-news","15":"tag-icc","16":"tag-icc-cricket-updates","17":"tag-icc-mens-t20-world-cup-news","18":"tag-international-cricket-news","19":"tag-latest-cricket-news","20":"tag-latest-icc-announcements","21":"tag-new-zealand","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-newzealand","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-t20-world-cup-news-updates","26":"tag-today-cricket-match-news","27":"tag-today-cricket-news-update","28":"tag-world-cup-cricket-articles"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}