Pakistani skipper Babar Azam credited veteran Fawad Alam for the win that the team registered in the second last Test of the two-match series against West Indies at Sobaina Park in Jamaica. He lauded the spirit of the cricketer who tiled in domestic cricket for a long time before proving his potential at the highest level.
“I always say this about Fawad Bhai that he is an experienced player and has scored a lot of runs in First class, around 10,000, which is huge. The way he applied himself under such tough conditions and so much pressure and built his innings was outstanding,” Bar said in a video uploaded by the Pakistan cricket Board on their official Twitter handle.
“All the batsmen must learn from him the way he has shown his potential and proved himself on the big stage,” added the 25-year-old.
Fawad Alam came to bat at such a situation where the team was three down for only two runs on the board. He worked with Babar himself and with a hundred, got the team to a position from where they could fight.
Lauding the team for its performance, Babar revealed the plans of the unit to get West indies out as quickly as possible in the first innings and then make them play the last few overs on day four of the Test having lost one day to rain already.
“It’s an effort of the whole team. We lost early wickets and then me and Fawad Bhai put on a good partnership and thankfully we finished around 320. After that, the way Shaheen Shah bowled, was outstanding. We pushed them on the backfoot and that was the plan,” said Babar.
“Then when we batted in the third innings, we had at the back of our minds that we must make West Indies bat the last 20-25 overs on the fourth day and we did so,” the skipper revealed further saying that this move helped them on the final day of the Test.
With the help of Nauman Ali and Shaheen’s bowling efforts, Pakistan were able to bowl out the Windies batting lineup and thereby win the Test by 109 runs to level the series 1-1. “We benefitted a lot from that move as we could bowl the whole fifth day to them and were able to get them all out,” said Babar.