Pakistan Beat India at the Hong Kong Sixes to Revive Their Title Defence

By TaazaPulse News Desk · Published: 30 October 2026 · TaazaPulse News Desk

Pakistan's Hong Kong Sixes title defence is alive again. Beaten by the United Arab Emirates in a last-ball thriller on Friday morning, the defending champions roared back in the afternoon at the Mission Road Ground in Mong Kok, chasing down India's 88 for 5 in just 3.5 overs to win the Group C clash by four wickets with 13 balls to spare. Captain Abbas Afridi destroyed the chase in its first over — five consecutive sixes off Krunal Pandya — and Khawaja Nafay's 41 from 12 balls finished the argument, as Pakistan moved to two points and left Group C to be decided by Saturday's final group match between the UAE and India.

The win matters because of what this format does to losers. The Hong Kong Sixes is six-a-side, six-over cricket: 12 teams in four groups of three, and only each group winner reaches the Cup semi-finals. When Pakistan lost to the UAE on the last ball of the morning match, their defence stood one defeat from ending on the first day. The response, a few hours later against the opposition Pakistani crowds care about most, was about as emphatic as six-over cricket allows: India held to 88 for 5, the target overhauled with more than a third of the innings unused, and the net-run-rate damage of the morning substantially repaired.

How the chase was won in eleven balls

Pakistan won the toss and fielded, and their bowlers kept India to 88 for 5 in six overs. Shashank Singh resisted with a blistering 40 from 11 balls, with two fours and five sixes, and Nitish Rana made 19 from 14, but Abdul Samad took two wickets and no other Indian batter broke free; T Natarajan's unbeaten 12 at the end only lifted India to a total that always looked short on a ground where 18 runs an over is a normal scoring rate.

The chase was effectively settled by the end of the first over. Nafay took a single off Krunal Pandya's first ball, and Afridi then hit five consecutive sixes — a 31-run over that turned a potentially awkward pursuit into a procession. The second over, from Natarajan, cost 28 more, Nafay joining the assault as Pakistan reached 59 without loss after two overs. Afridi's 35 came from just eight balls. Nafay, the wicketkeeper-batter whose 41 off 12 included two fours and five sixes, fell to Rahul Tewatia in the fourth over with the finish line in sight, but Irfan Khan hit a six off the first ball he faced and Abdul Samad, unbeaten on seven from three balls, was at the other end when Pakistan closed on 91 for 2 in 3.5 overs. Afridi was named player of the match: 53 from 13 balls in the morning, 35 from eight in the afternoon, the captain's hitting turning both of Pakistan's matches on a day when their defence swung from despair to delight.

Group C: one match left, three teams alive

The group table reads: UAE two points from one match, Pakistan two points from two, India none from one. Everything now rests on Saturday's UAE–India match (7:35 AM Pakistan time). If the UAE win it, they top Group C and take the Cup semi-final place, and Pakistan — as group runners-up — drop into the Plate semi-finals on Saturday afternoon. If India win, all three teams finish on two points and the group is settled on net run rate, and that is where Friday afternoon's violence matters. India start Saturday with a net run rate of minus 9.072 after the scale of this defeat, so they would need not just a win but an enormous one; Pakistan, who lost with zero balls to spare in the morning and won with 13 to spare in the afternoon, hold the strongest run-rate position of the three if the table ties. Nothing is confirmed until Saturday's match is played — this report does not call it early — but the defending champions have moved from the brink to the front of the queue in the space of one chase.

It is worth pausing on how close the day came to going the other way. In the morning match, Pakistan's 106 for 3 — Afridi's 53 off 13 the centrepiece — was chased down by the UAE for 109 for 5, Khalid Shah's 71 from 20 balls and Zahid Ali's unbeaten 22 from eight taking the game to the final delivery. Pakistan's bowlers took five wickets and still lost, because in this format a defence is only ever one over from collapse. TaazaPulse reported that match in full this morning; the afternoon was its mirror image, the same team on the right side of the same chaos.

Day one around the grounds

Group C was not the only group moving on Friday. In Group A, Australia opened with a statement win, making 135 for 3 and beating hosts Hong Kong, who replied with 107 for 4, by 28 runs — but the hosts roared back in the afternoon, demolishing England by 61 runs: Hong Kong piled up 149 for 5, the highest total of the day, behind Anshuman Rath's 62 from 13 balls, and held England to 88 for 3. It left Group A resting on the day's last match, England against Australia: an Australian win sends Australia through as group winners with Hong Kong second, while an England win would lift Hong Kong to the top of the group on net run rate and drop Australia into the Plate semi-finals. In Group B, Bangladesh endured a miserable first day, losing both of their matches and with them their Cup hopes: Sri Lanka chased Bangladesh's 127 for 4 with a total of 129 for 5, and Scotland overhauled their 94 for 5 by reaching 97 for 4. Sri Lanka and Scotland, a win each, meet on Saturday with the group in their hands. In Group D, Oman thrashed South Africa by 49 runs, making 107 for 2 and dismissing South Africa for 58 — and South Africa's day got worse when Afghanistan chased down their 107 for 1 with 112 for 3, eliminating the South Africans and setting up a Saturday-morning group decider between Afghanistan and Oman.

Pakistan's squad — Afridi, Samad, Ahmed Daniyal, Muhammad Irfan Khan, Nafay, Muhammad Shahzad and Saad Masood — now waits on Saturday's arithmetic. The six-time champions came to Hong Kong to defend the title they won against Kuwait in last year's final, and after a morning that threatened humiliation they end the first day where champions expect to be: in control of their own story, if not quite yet of the group.

What happens next: semi-finals Saturday, the final on Sunday

There is no final today, and any report claiming one is guessing. The tournament's knockout structure runs across the weekend: the remaining group matches are played on Saturday morning, followed by the Bowl semi-finals (8:30 and 9:25 AM Pakistan time), the Plate semi-finals (10:20 and 11:15 AM) and the Cup semi-finals (12:10 PM, group A winners against group C winners; 1:05 PM, group B winners against group D winners). Finals day is Sunday 1 November, with the Bowl final at 10:20 AM, the Plate final at 11:15 AM and the Cup final — the Hong Kong Sixes final itself — at 12:10 PM Pakistan time, all at the Mission Road Ground in Mong Kok. If Pakistan top Group C, their Cup semi-final is Saturday's 12:10 PM match; if they finish second, they play the Plate semi-final at 11:15 AM the same day. TaazaPulse will report the UAE–India result and Pakistan's semi-final as soon as they are final.

For one Friday in Mong Kok, though, the story is simpler than the permutations. Pakistan lost a match they should have won in the morning and won a match they had to win in the afternoon, and they won it in eleven balls of hitting that the tournament will remember: five sixes in a row from a captain who, hours earlier, had watched a defence die on the last ball. The title defence goes into the weekend alive — which, at lunchtime on Friday, was very much in doubt.