Pakistan vs West Indies, 3rd T20I: 5 Talking Points

After gaining an unassailable lead of 2-0 in the series, Pakistan went in against West Indies in the 3^rd T20 aiming for a whitewash at the Sheikh Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi. The visitors had crumbled in the first two games and weren’t a competition of any sorts and Pakistan had cruised to victories on both occasions. A consolation win would here have done the world of good for the West Indies for the remainder of the tour but it wasn’t meant to be.

Sarfaraz Ahmed yet again called the right side of the coin and continued the trend of putting the opposition in first. Just like the previous game, Pakistan bowlers were all over the Windies batsmen whose poor show on the tour was on display again. They lost heaps of wickets in the power play exactly like on the previous two occasions. The top order failed, middle order struggled for runs and there was no finish whatsoever.

The Pakistani bowlers enjoyed their rich vein of form as there was no resistance from the batsmen. Imad Wasim was outstanding once more who was well supported by all the bowlers, none of whom conceded more than 6 runs an over. West Indies were halted at their lowest score in the series of just 103 runs with the loss of 5 wickets at the end of 20 overs. While chasing, it was like a walk in the park for Pakistan as they drove to victory having close to 5 overs to spare and won the game by 8 wickets.

Here are the 5 prime taking points as Pakistan clinched the series 3-0:

Imad Wasim’s dream run

The left-arm spinner was on a roll throughout the series.  He bagged a five-for in the first game followed by a wicket in the second and backed those up with 3 wickets in the last game. It was quite fascinating to see a spinner bowling with the new ball and using the in-drift as his weapon rather than the turn off the track. He kept aiming the stumps and got batsmen out bowled or LBW as most of his scalps. In the entire series, he conceded just 2 boundaries and finished with 9 wickets at a superb economy rate of 4.42 and was deservedly adjudged the Man of the Series.

An ordinary batting performance by West Indies

The batting order was flooded with a number of power hitters but none of them came even close to living up to the reputation in any of the 3 games. Here as well, they lost 3 wickets inside 6 overs as Imad Wasim the main destructor once more. Marlon Samuels toiled hard to get the innings to some score, but he was struggling very hard to time the ball. His misery at the crease did not finish till the end as he stayed unbeaten and consumed 59 balls for his 42 runs. West Indies managed to hit only 6 fours and a six and failed to pose any threat to the Pakistan batting line-up which was highly unexpected of the world champions.

Kesrick Williams’ impressive debut

Amongst all the miserable performances from the West Indies, the sole bright spot came late in the series in the form of Kesrick Williams. The fast bowler from Jamaica had a nice start to his T20 career as he dismissed both the Pakistani openers. He made it to the team on the back of some good performances in the Caribbean Premier League and was a replacement for Andre Russell. He showed his ability to bowl good slower balls mixed up with pace. He finished with figures of 15/2 in 4 overs and turned out to be the biggest positive of the very few that West Indies can look back to from the series.

A unique record of left-armers

Usually, left-arm bowlers are a rarity in cricket; there are always more right-armers than them, but an exception of this was presented by Pakistan in this game. As many as 18 overs were bowled by left-armers out of the 20 during the first innings which became the record for the most number of overs by left-handers in an innings. Imad Wasim, Sohail Tanvir, Mohammad Nawaz, Mohammad Amir and Rumman Raees combined together to bowl the 18 overs and Shoaib Malik was the only right-hander who delivered the 2 overs of the innings. Such a record could only have from Pakistan having a history of producing bowlers in heaps.

Also read – Twitter Reactions: Imad Wasim continues his dominance over Windies

The first 3-0 whitewash for Pakistan

It was the very first occasion that the Pakistan team achieved a 3-0 victory in T20 internationals. It was a clinical performance from them and outplayed the West Indies in all the three departments of the game. West Indies went without a fight in any of the games and neither the batsmen nor the bowlers dominated for even a short span of time. Sarfaraz Ahmad was brilliant in his decision making especially with the field setting who has now tasted victories in all the 4 matches that he has led the side in, which is going to be a huge boost for the team ahead of the ODI and Test series.