Abu Dhabi: Pakistan will aim for a clean sweep over the world champions West Indies when the teams clash in the third and final Twenty20 match of the series at the Abu Dhabi Zayed Cricket Stadium today.
For West Indies, which failed to lift their game against a spirited display from Pakistan in the two back-to-back matches in Dubai, a win in Abu Dhabi will be a consolation. It’s a fact that West Indies is missing their star players such as Chris Gayle, Andre Russell and Darren Sammy, but in international cricket that is not an excuse. A 3-0 clean sweep by Pakistan can disparage the tag of world champions.
Though West Indies skipper Carlos Brathwaite had remarked that it is a myth that spinners will only dominate in the subcontinent wickets but the fact is that their team is struggling against Pakistan spinners. Toby Radford, the West Indies batting coach, had to candidly admit after two defeats to his team that: “Clearly, the game plan from Pakistan has been to have slow wickets to bowl a lot of spin and have very big boundaries. West Indies are known to be a big, six-hitting and boundary-hitting side, normally play on quicker pitches and slightly smaller grounds. But it’s up to us to find a way around that.”
In short in a three-match series, before a team realises their mistake, defeat would have engulfed them and this is what has happened to West Indies. At a time when their key players are missing, the rest of the West Indies players should have risen to challenge. The openers Evin Lewis and Johnson Charles failed in both the matches. The middle order batsmen too failed miserably including the mercurial Marlon Samuels and Kieron Pollard. Dwayne Barvo managed to hit a fighting half century or the team would not have even reached the three figure mark in the first match of the series.
West Indies were 48 for 8 in the first T20 match and to 89 for 7 in the first two Twenty matches and that is indeed a pathetic batting performance from world champions. Pakistan’s spinners but also pacers proved their worth. Left-arm pacer Sohail Tanvir bowled brilliantly in the second T20 and so did the other two pacers Hassan Ali and Wahab Riaz. Left-arm spinners Imad Wasim was simply superb in both the matches.
A delighted Pakistan team coach Mickey Arthur, speaking on the eve of the third and final Twenty20 match after arriving here, said: “Without a doubt it’s the first step in the right direction, we set ourselves some realistic goals and targets. First of all we want to play the brand of cricket that is up with the task, we want players who can do the job and I think we went some way to finding out some players in this series.”
Arthur made his agenda very clear and that is to record a clean sweep. “We want to win it 3-0 and we want to be ruthless and one of the main thing around our team is the attitude, in the field, in batting and with the ball and that’s a step in the right direction. Make no mistake in making 3-0, we won’t be satisfied if it’s not 3-0 and sit in the dressing room and say we have won 2-1,” he declared.
Arthur want to carry even the T20 series win into the oncoming One-day series too. “We have a lot of work to do there in ODIs but if we keep working towards the aspects that we have identified that will make us a better cricket and we will start playing the brand of cricket that’s going to be conducive to success.”
Pakistan: Sarfraz Ahmed (capt, wk), Sharjeel Khan, Khalid Latif, Babar Azam, Shoaib Malik, Umar Akmal, Mohammad Nawaz, Imad Wasim, Sohail Tanvir, Wahab Riaz, Hasan Ali, Mohammad Rizwan, Mohammad Amir, Rumman Raees, Saad Nasim.
West Indies: Carlos Brathwaite (capt), Evin Lewis, Johnson Charles, Andre Fletcher (wk), Marlon Samuels, Dwayne Bravo, Nicholas Pooran, Kieron Pollard, Sunil Narine, Jerome Taylor, Samuel Badree, Jason Holder, Rovman Powell, Kesrick Williams, Chadwick Walton. Start time: 8pm
