West Indies won the toss and elected to bat on a pitch which was bound to assist seam bowlers, it was a brave decision but proved disasterous when they lost their top 7 wickets for just 47. But Umar Gul, Rana Naved and Afridi gifted too many overpitched deliveries and the West Indian tail Enders took full advantage of them. Pakistani bowlers especially the senior ones lost the plot and probably got a bit too impatient and tried too many varieties and adjusted the line and length a bit too much, the wicket was offering a lot of assistance to the seamers the bowlers just had to bowl one line with the seam up and leave the rest on the pitch.
Afridi looked flat as a captain and as a bowler he was the most expensive bowler in the Pakistani line up and one would question his wisdom of bowling 8 overs himself when he was not troubling the batsmen and was also going for runs, he should have persisited with Aamer and Rana both had 3 over left. His bowling changes and field placements were questionable. There was no need to change Aamer so quickly and there was no need to bring himself on so early.
Pakistan should not have played two spinners on this pitch, they should have played Asif instead.
West Indies scored 133 in 34.3 overs, its not a big score, poor captaincy and poor bowling allowed West Indies to post a total of 133, given the fragility of Pakistan’s batting line up on pitches like this Pakistan might get in trouble. Imran Nazir is already out, Pakistan are 9/1 after 3 overs.
Malik, Misbah, Kamran Akmal , Umar Akmal and Afridi all of them are in form Pakistan should get this total easily. Malik just hit the ball out of the stadium on a free hit. It will all depend on how the West Indian bowlers exploit the conditions or else it will be an easy win for Pakistan.
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