Odean Smith and Hassan Khan Shine in Death Overs

Imran Tahir had the ball, the field was set, and the game had slipped into that tense late-innings rhythm where every delivery carries its own little drama. Odean Smith stood at the crease with a grin that suggested he was ready to take risks.

Tahir darted one just outside leg stump. Smith shuffled across, looking to help it fine. He missed. No run, just that cheeky smile lingering on his face, a small hint that he wasn’t going to die wondering.

The intent became clearer a couple of balls earlier in the over. Tahir tossed one up outside off, 84.3kph, a classic invitation. Smith didn’t refuse. He backed away, freed his arms and hammered it through extra cover for four. It was a clean strike, the kind that shifts the mood in an instant. The veteran legspinner had offered a fraction of width, and Smith punished him.

Hassan Khan, at the other end, played the foil and then suddenly the aggressor. Against Mohammad Nabi, he had been more circumspect. Nabi, as tight and clever as ever, finished with 4-0-25-1, his final over summed up by a scrambled single. Hassan cut off the back foot to cover, a slight hesitation between the wickets, the throw whipped to the keeper’s end, and Shai Hope breaking the stumps just after Smith made his ground. A direct hit would have ended it. Instead, the partnership lived on.

Nabi had earlier given Smith only a single with a hint of turn, the batter respecting the subtle spin and knocking it down to long-off. It felt like the bowlers still had a grip on things.

Then came Khary Pierre’s last over, and with it, a change in tempo.

Pierre had been excellent, stifling the scoring, working through his variations. Hassan nudged him for twos, first with an inside-edge towards midwicket, then cutting with the spin past deep backward point. Smart batting, working the angles, refusing to let the left-arm spinner settle completely.

Smith, too, had to manufacture room as Pierre went at the stumps. One such ball, at 84.3kph, was squeezed to long-off for a single. It was a small win for the bowler, but the pressure of the scoreboard demanded more from the batters.

The release came on the final ball of Pierre’s spell.

Full, on the stumps, 86kph. Hassan Khan dropped to one knee and launched a slogsweep over deep midwicket. The ball sailed 72 metres and into the stands. Six runs, and with it, the shackles snapped. Pierre, who had kept things tight all evening, walked off with figures of 2 for 21 from his four overs, but that last-ball blow changed the feel of his spell and the innings.

From there, the pattern was clear: Smith and Hassan were no longer just surviving. Smith’s boundary off Tahir, Hassan’s late surge, and the desperate dives and near run-outs in between told the story of a pair determined to squeeze every run out of the closing overs.

The smiles, the risks, the one knee down slog over midwicket — this was death-overs cricket at its most familiar and unforgiving. And as the bowlers walked back to their marks, they knew the batters had finally wrestled back a slice of control.