Pakistan whitewash West Indies in T20

ABU DHABI: Pakistan downed world champions West Indies in their third and final T20 international by eight wickets in Abu Dhabi, achieving their first-ever clean sweep in the shortest format on Tuesday.

Left-arm spinner Imad Wasim chipped in with 3-21 — nine wickets in the series — as West Indies crawled to 103-5 in their 20 overs after Pakistan won the toss and decided to bowl.

Marlon Samuels scored 42 not out, while Kieron Pollard made an unbeaten 16.

Sent in to bat, West Indies stuttered to 103 for 5 in their 20 overs, failing to get into gear after losing three top-order wickets to Imad’s non-turning left-arm spin.

By the start of the ninth over, three of the West Indies batsmen had been bowled by Imad’s stock in-ducker.

Samuels finished unbeaten on 42 off 59 balls, but he was by no means alone in struggling to up the tempo. Pollard ended up not out on 16 off 17 balls without hitting a single boundary.

The spinners hit an awkward, short-of-good-length area and attacked the stumps. The three left-arm seamers, including the debutant Rumman Raees, hit the same sort of length while constantly taking pace off the ball.

The few boundaries that came were off rare deliveries that offered a bit of swinging room: Samuels played a crisp front-foot cut off Imad, and pulled a too-short slower ball from Sohail Tanvir; Nicholas Pooran slog-swept Mohammad Nawaz into the grass banks, a shot that may have cleared the stadium roof in Sharjah.

Pakistan reached the target in 15.1 overs, with Shoaib Malik scoring 43 not out and Babar Azam making unbeaten 27.

Chasing less than six runs an over, Pakistan were never under pressure, especially after Jerome Taylor sprayed the new ball around in his first two overs, conceding four leg-side fours, a leg-side wide, and a set of leg-byes down to the fine leg boundary.

Kesrick Williams, the debutant fast bowler, dismissed both openers in the sixth over of the innings, but Pakistan easily shrugged that setback aside as Babar and Shoaib steered them home with an unbroken partnership of 68.

Pakistan won the first match by nine wickets and the second by 16 runs, both in Dubai.  The two teams will now play a three-match one-day series, starting in Sharjah on Friday.

Score Board

Pakistan won toss

West Indies

J Charles b Imad      5

†A D S Fletcher run out       9

C A K Walton b Imad 0

M N Samuels not out 42

D J Bravo b Imad     11

N Pooran c Shoaib b Nawaz  16

K A Pollard not out    16

Extras (lb 3, w 1)     4

Total (5 wickets; 20 overs)  103

Did not bat: *C R Brathwaite, S P Narine, J E Taylor, K O K Williams

Fall: 1-12, 2-12, 3-17, 4-31, 5-66

Bowling: Imad 4-1-21-3; Sohail 4-0-22-0; Nawaz (3) 3-0-16-1 (1w); Amir 4-0-20-0; Shoaib 2-0-11-0; Rumman 3-0-10-0

Pakistan

Sharjeel Khan c Fletcher b Williams 11

Khalid Latif b Williams          21

Babar Azam not out  27

Shoaib Malik not out  43

Extras (lb 4, w 2)     6

Total (2 wickets; 15.1 overs)         108

Did not bat: Umar Akmal, *†Sarfraz Ahmed, M Nawaz (3), Imad Wasim, Sohail Tanvir, M Amir, Rumman Raees

Fall: 1-36, 2-40

Bowling: Taylor 2-0-19-0 (1w); Williams 4-0-15-2 (1w); Bravo 4-0-31-0; Narine 4-0-21-0; Brathwaite 1.1-0-18-0

Result: Pakistan won by 8 wickets

Series: Pakistan clean sweep 3-match series by 3-0

T20I debuts: Rumman Raees (Pakistan); KOK Williams (West Indies)

Man of the Match: Imad Waseem (Pak)

Man of the Series: Imad Waseem (Pak)

Umpires: Ahsan Raza (Pakistan) and Shozab Raza (Pakistan). TV umpire: Ahmed Shahab (Pakistan). Match referee: A J Pycroft (Zimbabwe)