Umar Akmal drives during his important knock of 46. Pakistan 135-7 (Akmal 46no) beat
West Indies 124-9 (Tanvir 2-20) by 11 runs
Second Twenty20 International, St Vincent
Scorecard
Pakistan completed a series victory over the West Indies with a comfortable win in the second T20 International in St Vincent. The result means that they move up to second in the ICC T20 Rankings behind Sri Lanka, while world champions West Indies slip below India into fourth.
The home side never recovered from an appalling start to their run chase after restricting Pakistan to 135 for seven after they had elected to bat. They hit just one boundary in their first nine overs and found themselves 17 for four after eight as they struggled to get the Pakistani spinners off the square. Mohammad Hafeez delivered four overs of off-spin at a cost of only nine runs and picked up the wicket of Chris Gayle. Sohail Tanvir also bowled well, maintaining a wicket-to-wicket line with his left-arm medium-pace.
Dwayne Bravo and the surprisingly promoted Sunil Narine just about got the West Indies back into the match with a fifth-wicket stand of 47. Narine benefited from a couple of useful edges and clubbed a six over mid-wicket to make 28 off 16 balls, while Bravo favoured his usual area of wide long-off.
Kieron Pollard then came in following Narine’s departure to Saeed Ajmal (2-21) and clubbed 23 off 10 balls. However, he and Bravo fell in successive deliveries at the end of the 17th over and the game was as good as over. Zulfiqar Babar picked up both of them and ended with two for 37.
After that, it was just a case of the hosts minimising their margin of defeat and Tino Best helped their cause by hitting a brace of sixes as they ended on 124 for nine.
Pakistan had earlier found scoring difficult more or less from the outset in their innings. Ahmed Shehzad made 44 but it took 46 balls as Samuel Badree proved almost impossible to get away, returning figures of two for 16 from his four overs of leg-spin. Narine was also his usual threatening self and contributed three for 26 to the cause. Umar Akmal was the only batsman apparently able to cope and kept his side alive with a knock of 46 not out off 36 balls.
Pakistan will be pleased with their mini-tour of the Caribbean, having now added a 2-0 clean-sweep of the T20s to a 3-2 win in the ODI series.
© Cricket World 2013
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