WINDIES TROUNCED BY 9 WICKETS IN OPENING MATCH OF T20 SERIES
eft-arm spinner Imad Wasim became the second Pakistani bowler to bag five wickets in a Twenty20 format in the first game of the three-match series against West Indies at the Dubai International stadium yesterday.
His spell of 5 for 14 ensured that Pakistan bowled out West Indies for 115 runs in 19.5 overs and chased down the total for an emphatic nine-wicket win with 34 balls to spare.
Dwayne Bravo played a fighting knock of 55 runs off 54 balls with four boundaries and two sixes and with Jerome Taylor’s determined run-a-ball 21 runs lifted West Indies from a pathetic 48 for 8. Their partnership of 66 runs in 7.5 over turned out to be the highest ever ninth wicket partnership.
Chasing the moderate total, Pakistan got off to a quick start with opener Sharjeel Khan hitting 22 runs off 18 balls with three boundaries and a six.
Leg-spinner Samuel Badree clean bowled him in the fourth over with a slider. Babar Azam joined opener Khalid Latif . Azam hit Brathwaite for two sixes in the ninth over. At the half way mark, Pakistan needed just 45 more runs to win.
Azam cracked his maiden half century and remained unbeaten with 55 runs off 37 balls with six boundaries and two sixes while Latif hit an unconquered 34 runs off 32 balls with four boundaries and one six. Together they put on unbeaten 88 runs off 10.3 overs.
Strong start
Earlier, Pakistan won the toss and elected to bowl first. They got an early wicket with the fifth ball of the first over from Wasim when opener Evin Lewis went for a slog sweep and Mohammad Nawaz at the boundary took the catch.
Andre Fletcher joined opener Johnson Charles, but lasted only six balls. Wasim struck again in the second over with his second ball by clean bowling Fletcher for 2. With the fourth ball of that over he also trapped the aggressive Marlon Samuels leg before for 4 with a ball that skidded.
More disaster was to follow West Indies when left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz too struck with the third ball of his first over. Charles, who shaped himself for a shot, found the ball skid and hit his leg stump.
Pooran disappoints
Twenty-year-old debutant Nicholas Pooran played an impressive flick shot to the boundary off Hasan Ali but fell to the next ball. He edged into the gloves of wicketkeeper and a happy skipper Sarfraz Ahmed.
Half the West Indies team were back in the pavilion for 22 runs in just 4.3 overs.
Then mantle of lifting the team fell on the shoulders of two of the most experienced players in the side in Bravo and Kieron Pollard. Bravo hit a boundary off Hasan Ali in the eighth over picking the gap through long on. At the half way mark, West Indies crawled to 46 for 5.
Wasim who was reintroduced into the attack in the 11th over struck again with his third ball. He forced Pollard attempting to play to mid-wicket deflect the ball off his pads into the middle stump.
It ended the 25 runs partnership in six overs with Barvo.
Skipper Carlos Brathwaite lasted just two balls. He paddled Wasim’s fifth ball and top edged to Khalid Latif at leg gully for a duck. Wasim thus became the second Pakistani bowler to take five wickets in a T20 format.
Risky single
To make matter more easy, next man Sunil Narine got run out attempting a risky single to mid off but Latif was on target with a direct hit at bowlers’s end wicket. It looked like West Indies would be bowled out for the second lowest total in Twenty20 after Netherlands’ 39 all out against Sri Lanka at Chittagong in 2014.
Jerome Taylor hit the first six of the match off Nawaz over long off. Bravo too lifted Sohail Tanvir over extra cover for another six. The pair put on 50 runs partnership in 5.2 overs and steered West Indies past the 100 run mark in 17.4 overs.
West Indies all-rounder Rovman Powell, who is set to make his international debut here during this [T20] series, is a cricketer who rose from poverty to clinch a place on the national team. He may be the son of a single parent, but Powell’s mother encouraged his love for cricket.
After a training session, Powell talked about his dream of wanting to give back to his mother for all the effort she had put in for him.
“I’m from a small but humble background, single parent being my mom so what I do is try to use my life to pay her back for all she’s done for me. I’ve grown up and experienced a lot of hardships, I’ve experienced poverty and that is my driving force. Going forward I want to make sure that my mom is taken care of, that is my dream, that is my aim.”
There was a time when this Jamaican used to skip meals to make sure his mother and younger sister weren’t left unfed.
He did not want to die a poor man and worked hard on his cricket skills and made it to the Jamaica Tallawahs team in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL).
One of the happiest moments of his life was when he could send money earned by playing of cricket to his mother.
Powell uses the tough struggles of his life as motivation to work harder.
‘Hard work is key’
“I’ve played under 19 in 2011, which was the first time I played for Jamaica. Recently I made my debut in first-class cricket for Jamaica and after that I represented the Jamaica Tallawahs in the CPL. I think that hard work is the key thing that has led me this far. Over the years, Andre [Russell] has been a mentor for me, and Andre is doing good cricket wise so what I do is try to take a few things from him and let him teach me the game. He tries to pass on his experience and pass on his knowledge to me.”
For Powell, the happiest moment was getting on the national team. “Getting the call from Courtney Brown [chief selector] was the happiest day of my life. I know that dreams do come true.”
Powell hit 38 runs against Emirates Cricket Board in the warm-up match and put on a fighting 52 runs partnership to pull West Indies out of trouble.