West Indies come out smelling roses

Only vice-captain Inzamam-ul Haq with an unbeaten 51 off 94 balls that contained four boundaries showed any resolve for the Pakistanis, whose next match is against Zimbabwe in St George’s on Saturday.

On a hard, true pitch and against one of the leading sides in the world, West Indies’ total looked quite modest, but once new-ball bowlers Curtly Ambrose and Reon King restricted the Pakistanis to 16 for two in the 12 overs they shared, the battle was always going to be uphill.

Ambrose had teenage opening batsman Imran Nazir caught behind with the last ball of the first over and King accounted for the dangerous Shahid Afridi when he was caught at mid-off off the first ball of the tenth over.

Change bowlers have been the bugbear of West Indies in recent times, but Rose, in particular, and Nixon McLean, playing in front of his home crowd, did not let Ambrose and King’s work go waste.

Rose captured three wickets in the space of eight balls to knock the wind out of Pakistan’s sails and put West Indies on the road to their first win over Pakistan in seven limited-overs matches.

Younis Khan was caught at mid-on with the second ball of Rose’s third over and, three balls later, Yousuf Youhana flicked a catch low to mid-wicket where Wavel Hinds came up with a splendid catch. In Rose’s next over, Abdur Razzaq played-on a short-of-a-length delivery and was bowled to leave Pakistan 41 for five in the 20th over and there was to be no comeback story for last year’s World Cup finalists.

Inzamam and captain Moin Khan fought gamefully to post 47 for the biggest stand of the innings, but once Moin top-edged an ambitious pull at a short-ball off Rose to give wicketkeeper Ridley Jacobs his second catch, the result was only a formality.

Earlier, West Indies found scoring difficult after choosing to bat as captain Jimmy Adams led the way with 50 off 87 balls. He and Wavel Hinds shared 84 for the third wicket to give the West Indies innings some body after they skidded to 54 for two in the 17th over.

Opening batsmen Philo Wallace and Sherwin Campbell gave West Indies a useful start of 49 in 13.2 overs by seeing off the new-ball attack of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.

The first bowling change brought an immediate setback when Wallace was bowled by leg-spin bowler Mushtaq Ahmed for 21 off 38 balls.

WEST INDIES

P Wallace b Mushtaq 21
S Campbell c Inzamam b Razzaq 22
W Hinds b Mushtaq 39
J Adams c Youhana b Arshad 50
C Gayle c Nazir b Arshad 15
R Jacobs not out 14
R Powell c Younis Khan b Akram 12
F Rose b Razzaq 6
N McLean not out 1
Extras: (lb13, w15, nb5) 33
Total: (7 wickets in 50 overs) 213
Fall of wickets: 1-49, 2-55, 3-138, 4-170, 5-171, 6-198, 7-209
Bowling: Wasim Akram 10-2-44-1, Waqar Younis 10-0-50-0, Mushtaq Ahmed 10-0-34-2, Abdur Razzaq 9-3-30-2, Arshad Khan 10-2-38-2, Shahid Afridi 1-0-4-0

PAKISTAN

Imran Nazir c Jacobs b Ambrose 0
Shahid Afridi c Wallace b King 5
Younis Khan c King b Rose 15
Inzamam-ul-Haq not out 51
Yousuf Youhana c Hinds b Rose 0
Abdur Razzaq b Rose 2
Moin Khan c&b Rose 20
Wasim Akram c Adams b Rose 3
Waqar Younis lbw McLean 8
Mushtaq Ahmed b McLean 0
Arshad Khan b Gayle 0
Extras: (lb4, w3, nb6) 13
Total: (allout in 41.3 overs) 117
Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-12, 3-32, 4-32, 5-41, 6-88, 7-92, 8-115, 9-116
Bowling: Ambrose 8-2-12-1, King 8-3-17-1, Rose 10-1-23-5, McLean 7-1-27-2, Adams 4-0-15-0, Gayle 4.3-0-19-1
Result: West Indies won by 96 runs.