Finn Allen acknowledges the applause after scoring a century. Photo: Michael Thomas / www.photosport.nz
Finntastic.
Black Caps opener Finn Allen thumped 137 from 62 balls to help the home side post a formidable total of 224 for seven against Pakistan this afternoon.
The Universal Oval's dimensions proved little hurdle for the opener. He flayed a T20 international record equalling 16 sixes.
Read that again. Sixteen sixes.
And some of them were in the air for an awful long time.
And some of them disappeared out of the ground.
The spare box of balls was called on regularly.
New Zealand Cricket ought to invoice him.
Tim Seifert played a nice cameo of 31. He fed the strike to Allen and combined in a partnership of 125 for the second wicket.
Allen got a standing ovation when he finally dragged a delivery on and was dismissed.
His total of 137 is the highest for New Zealand, eclipsing the 123 Brendon McCullum whacked against Bangladesh in 2012.
He certainly treated the sell-out crowd to a wonderful display of power hitting.
New Zealand's total was the highest T20 innings at the venue, so Pakistan will need to break the record to keep the five-game series alive. They trail 2-0.
The Black Caps are undefeated at the University Oval across all three formats.
The game is sold out. Capacity is 4000.
New Zealand XI: Finn Allen, Devon Conway, Tim Seifert (wk), Daryl Mitchell, Glenn Phillips, Mark Chapman, Mitchell Santner (c), Matthew Henry, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee, Lockie Ferguson.
Pakistan XI: Mohammad Rizwan (vc), Saim Ayub, Babar Azam, Fakhar Zaman, Iftikhar Ahmed, Azam Khan (wk), Mohammad Nawaz, Shaheen Afridi (c), Mohammad Wasim Jnr, Haris Rauf, Zaman Khan.
This story was first published by the Otago Daily Times.