New dad Boult cherishes special spell

abu dhabi — Trent Boult is a new dad but fatherhood hasn’t changed his demeanour on the field. He is still the fiery New Zealander who loves tormenting the batsmen with his opening burst.

And during the first ODI match against Pakistan, he ripped apart the top-order with a hat trick – the third New Zealander to do so.

Pakistan failed to recover from the strikes and lost the match by 47 runs. Boult, returning to international scene after a sevenmonth break, said the first baby was his lucky charm.

“He must have been watching in the early hours of the morning back home,” he said.

Boult sticks to simple basics – run in, pitch the ball up, swing it around and try to take wickets.

“We’re always aiming to get a couple of wickets at the top in that first power play and put pressure.” Boult bowled Fakhar Zaman, had Babar Azam caught behind and trapped Mohammad Hafeez leg before.

And he cherishes his third scalp the most.

“You are lucky enough to get a hat trick. You get one and two, it’s pretty cool but to get three in a row was pretty satisfying. When the hat trick ball came around, I was just trying to make him (Hafeez) play and get the ball on the wickets. It was nice for it to swing back a little bit and trap him in front.”

Boult said playing Pakistan in the UAE is a tough challenge.

“We put lot of pressure on them at start of the innings. They established a nice little partnership there (Sarfraz Ahmed and Imad Wasim’s 103-run stand). They took the game deep and were looking to bat the full 50 overs. It shows you that over here you have to be in the battle for full 100 overs. But credit to our bowling unit to stick at it and take wickets. It was nice to get the job done.”