Pakistan v West Indies, 3rd T20I Review: Pakistan clean sweeps West Indies

Pakistan continued their dominance over West Indies after they defeated them by 8 wickets at the Dubai International Stadium and complete a 3-0 whitewash. Imad Wasim was yet again at his effective best and starred in the win with his match haul of 3/21.

His stupendous run in the three-match series saw him top the wicket-takers’ chart with 9 wickets leading the second-placed Sohail Tanvir who has five wickets to his credit. This win also is special for the leader of the pack, Sarfraz Ahmed, who became the first Pakistani captain to win his first 5 international games.

Pakistan asked West Indies to bat first after winning the toss citing dew factor as the reason. There was a slew of changes made by both the skippers. Brathwaite brought in Chadwick Walton in place of Evin Lewis and handed the debut to fast bowler Kesrick Williams whereas Sarfraz Ahmed swapped Rumman Raees and Mohammad Amir for Wahab Riaz and Hasan Ali.

Sarfraz’s decision to exclude gave Pakistan a unique distinction of becoming the first team to be played a T20I with five left-handed frontline bowlers at once.

West Indiebegangn to fall away immediately and virtually lost the game in the first half itself. Imad Wasim rocked the Windies batting order with a two-wicket burst in his first spell. Opener Johnson Charles and no.3 Chadwick Walton were made to depart off consecutive deliveries in the third over.

An over later, Andre Fletcher failed to get a positive response from his non-striking partner Marlon Samuels and ended up stumbling and stuttering in the middle of the pitch eventually getting run out.

There was no respite thereafter as none of the middle order could rescue Windies. Wasim continued with his wicket taking ways and pocketed Dwayne Bravo in the 9th over. Nicholas Pooran tried setting things on fire but his full-hearted pull towards deep midwicket was unable to go the distance and was caught by Shoaib Malik. Marlon Samuel’s sluggish 42 from 59 balls was the only substantial contribution to the Windies total.

Batting in response, Pakistan cruised to a smooth 8 wicket win with the help of unbeaten knocks from Babar Azam (25 from 22 balls) and Shoaib Malik (36 from 32 balls).

Openers Sharjeel Khan started off the proceeding with cracking boundary in the square boundary region. But, thereafter, there was not sort of hurry. Sharjeel and his batting partner Khalid Latif began taking forward the chase and added 36 runs for the first wicket before debutant Kesrick Williams gave a double blow in the last over of the powerplay, making both the Shajeel and Latif depart off the first and the last ball respectively.

The chase slowed down but that was only for a couple of overs as Babar Azam and Malik then piloted the chase perfectly without any further damage and complete the match as well as the whitewash.

Brief Scores:

West Indies: 103/5 in 20 overs (M Samuels 42; Imad Wasim 3/21)

Pakistan: 108/2 in 15.1overs (S Malik 43; Kesrick Williams 2/15)

Man of the Match: Imad Wasim

Man of the Series: Imad Wasim