Shadab does the trick again as Pakistan goes up 2-0
Shadab Khan, the 18-year-old leg-spinner, put in another match-defining performance before Hasan Ali, the right-arm medium pacer, held his nerve in the final over as Pakistan edged West Indies by three runs in the second of four Twenty20 Internationals in Port of Spain on Thursday (March 30).
Set a modest target of 133 to level the series after the six-wicket defeat in the first match, West Indies was stopped at 129 for 8 to suffer its fifth straight T20I loss to Pakistan.
Pakistan now holds an unbeatable 2-0 lead ahead of the last two matches at the weekend at Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad.
Shadab returned 4 for 14 with his mix of leg-breaks and googlies to thwart West Indies. His biggest strike came on the last delivery of his fourth over when he had Marlon Samuels caught behind by Sarfraz Ahmed for 44 in 35 balls, the top score of the innings. Samuels seemed on course to take West Indies to the target before Shadab stopped him.
From that point, the balance tilted in favour of Pakistan, but Carlos Brathwaite, who had earlier taken three wickets, tried to keep his team on course in partnership with Jason Holder.
But it came down to Hasan in the final over. He was smashed for boundaries by Sunil Narine off the first two deliveries, but with West Indies needing just six more runs to complete the victory, his accuracy denied Narine and Holder, who could only manage a single off the last ball when a boundary was needed to tie the scores.
Put in to bat after Brathwaite won the toss, Pakistan struggled to gain momentum against Narine and Samuel Badree. Narine finished with 3 for 22 and Badree 2 for 14.
It was the ninth-wicket pair of Wahab Riaz and Shadab, who came together with the total on 95 for 8 in the 17th over, that bailed Pakistan out with a quick 36-run stand on a dry, sluggish surface. Shoaib Malik’s 28 and Babar Azam’s 27 had lifted Pakistan after early losses but it looked like the innings wouldn’t last 20 overs before Riaz (24 in 10) and Shadab (13 in 10) took charge.