CARTERTON (New Zealand): Leading from the front, Pakistan captain Haseem Khan scored a brace to steer his team to an impressive 2-1 victory in the fourth test against New Zealand here on Wednesday.

With this win, Haseem’s men took a 2-1 lead in the five-match series. The last match will be held at the same venue on Thursday.

New Zealand won the series opener 3-2. It was followed by a 2-2 draw in the second game. Pakistan in the third match rebounded with a fine 4-2 win.

After the first three tests in Wellington, the two sides moved to Carterton, Wairarapa for the last two matches.

Pakistan owed their success to Haseem who exhibited superb hockey in the role of mentor for a team which has majority of young players.

The hosts began aggressively but Pakistan soon wrested the initiative and applied pressure. They were ahead after 10 minutes.

Haseem beautifully slipped through a congested defence before flicking the ball in with a nice flick. One minute into the second quarter, it was 1-1. A wonderful run from Harry Miskimmin was put into the goal by Jonty Keane.

With seven minutes to go before half time, the green-shirts reclaimed lead, again through Haseem who showed good opportunism as Pakistan finished halftime 2-1 ahead.

Third quarter saw the momentum swinging to and fro but the score board didn’t change.

With crowd loudly cheering them, New Zealand went all out for the equaliser in the last 15 minutes. The Pakistanis resolutely defended to keep the lead intact when the final hooter sounded.

Interestingly, there was no penalty corner goal on Wednesday. The two sides had scored 10 goals off the set piece in the first three tests.

The last test is being billed as a match of nerves as 8th-ranked New Zealand will be under immense pressure to win the game to share the series with the 14th-ranked Pakistan.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2017