Rizwan and Haider shine as Pakistan down Windies

Pakistan convincingly beat West Indies in the first T20 International and lead the 3 match series by 1-0.

Babar 11 registered yet another victory in 2021 and now Pakistan has become the most successful team of this year in terms of the number of matches.

Pakistan      20 overs     200-6

Rizwan 78(52)           Shepherd 2-43                                                                                                                    Haider 68(39)            Hosein 1-19                                                                                                                         Nawaz 30*(10).        Thomas 1-39

West Indies  19 overs   137 all-out

Hope    31(26)             Wasim  4-40                                                                                                                        Smith  24(16).            Shadab 3-17                                                                                                                    Powell  23(15)             Rauf      1-21

After the rare early departure of Babar Azam, Rizwan and Haider Ali batted beautifully to set a good platform for the hard-hitting batters to come and score some quick runs.

Haider Ali was brilliant with the bat today and he showed everyone that Pakistan’s middle-order will be in safe hands after the retirements of Hafeez and Shoaib Malik.

Haider Ali will be the next big thing in Pakistan’s cricket.

Due to brilliant half-centuries from Rizwan and Haider, and then also some superb hitting from M. Nawaz in the end helped Pakistan to put a huge total of 200 runs on the board at the end of 20 overs. 

The West Indian batting line-up was exposed against good spinners in this match.

West Indies only managed to score 41 runs with the loss of 4 wickets from those 8 overs that were bowled by the spinners.

An eventful start

West Indies elected to field first after winning the toss and Akeal Hosein dismissed the No. 1 ranked T20 player, Babar Azam for a duck.

It is one of the rare occasions when Babar Azam has failed to score big in 4 consecutive innings in T20ls.

Babar hasn’t crossed the 20 run mark in his last 4 knocks in T20 cricket and his number 1 position in ICC T20 rankings is in danger now.

However, he still has 2 more matches in the series to score some big runs and stabilise his No. 1 position. 

Rizwan-Haider stand

The leading run-scorer of 2021, M Rizwan once again performed well and dragged his side out of trouble when Pakistan was struggling a bit on 36-2 in the Powerplay.

Rizwan and Haider Ali built up a wonderful partnership for the third wicket and both scored superb half-centuries.

Rizwan was dismissed on 78 runs from 52 balls.

Haider Ali started his innings very slowly but after he got set, he smashed the ball all around the ground.

He scored 68 runs off just 39 balls.

His innings included 6 fours and 4 sixes.

This was also his best score in T20 cricket.

Pakistan was struggling to score quick runs in the end but M. Nawaz smashed a brilliant 30*off just 10 balls including 3 fours and 2 sixes.

He put Pakistan in the commanding seat with his batting. 

Windies lose early wickets

West Indies lost Brendon King very early in their chase.

Nicholas Pooran was cleaned up with a brilliant yorker from M. Wasim.

The top order of the West Indies team failed badly in this chase.

The West Indies batting lineup also struggled a bit against the spinners.

Shadab picked up 3 wickets for 17 runs while Nawaz picked up 1 wicket for 24 runs in his 4 overs.

Odean Smith and Shepherd smashed some good shots in the end but it was too late for West Indies to come back in the game.

West Indies were all out for just 137 runs and Pakistan won the match by 63 runs.

The young fast bowler, M. Wasim picked up a brilliant 4 wicket haul.