Cricket: Black Caps on a roll

Nathan McCullum makes his ground as the bails fly in the T20 against Pakistan in Hamilton last night. Photo / Getty Images

Another win, another step in the right direction, and the T20 series wrapped up with a game to spare. This is getting to be heady stuff for New Zealand.

Their 39-run win over Pakistan at Seddon Park was a notch up from Eden Park on Sunday. They fielded enthusiastically and caught expertly - save Ross Taylor spilling a straightforward chance at deep mid off - bowled steadily and piled on an unattainable 185 for seven after being sent in.

T20 batting is all about daring, and derring-do, best exemplified last night by Peter McGlashan's pair of reverse swept sixes off fast-medium Umar Gul in the course of taking 25 from one over. That was the cherry on top of an effort which began patchily but zoomed along in the latter stages.

Unbelievably there were a hardy few souls huddled on the bank four hours before the start in the rain. At that point you would not have given tuppence for the chances of even a reduced overs contest.

The unluckiest people in the ground were the women's teams of New Zealand and Australia, whose T20 opening Rose Bowl game, the scheduled curtain-raiser, was washed out.

There was some juice in the pitch and timing was a problem, particularly for James Franklin, promoted to No 3, who eked out nine singles from his first 17 balls before finding his range.

But he and Martin Guptill, maintaining his strong start to the series, got the innings moving.

Pakistan's fielding was generally alert and once those two had departed in consecutive overs the bowling did a decent restricting job for a time.

But it didn't last.

Scott Styris clobbered 31 off eight successive deliveries and wicketkeeper McGlashan gave a fine demonstration of his unorthodox and highly effective methods in this form.

He and captain Ross Taylor put on 42 in 16 balls, the highlight being McGlashan despatching Gul, no slouch at this business, for 24 off five balls with inventive hitting.

Between Styris, Taylor and McGlashan, New Zealand piled on 72 in four overs of rollicking hitting, the innings producing 11 sixes. It was by a distance New Zealand's best T20 total against Pakistan, and fifth best against any team.

To win, Pakistan needed to make their biggest total against New Zealand and gave it a decent lash for a time, Mohammad Hafeez, mixing belligerence with dash, giving them early momentum.

They were on a par with New Zealand's run rate but it was a tall order to maintain, more so once three wickets tumbled in 13 balls.

The key was Hafeez's dismissal. Umar Akmal cut his first ball to backward point, turned for a second then stopped. Hafeez was committed to the run and left left for dead by Akmal's late change of mind, combined with Guptill's sharp return.

The usually-racy Akmal then spent 32 balls over 26.

New Zealand kept the heat on and Pakistan's chase folded like a dodgy souffle.

The final T20 is in Christchurch tomorrow night.