The West Indians didn’t give up as easily as Pakistan would have expected them to on the last and fifth day of the second Test between the two sides at Sabina Park, Jamaica. Batters like Kyle Mayers, Jason Holder, Karaigg Brathwaite and Joshua da Silva at times would have made the Pakistani players feel the match might just slip out of their hands.
However, Shaheen Afridi and Nauman Ali made sure that Pakistan remained in the hunt every hour of the last day. It was courtesy of their four and three wickets respectively that the Babar Azam led team was able to bowl the Men in Maroon out and win the match by 109 runs and level the series 1-1, having lost the first match narrowly by one wicket.
Starting on their overnight score of 46-1, Alzarri Joseph and Brathwaite looked in good touch, before a good bouncer from Shaheen Afridi got the better of the nightwatchman. He was caught by Mohammad Rizwan trying to pull a head-high, rising ball. Nkruma Bonner was then trapped before the wicket by Hasan Ali before a stunner by Imran Butt at the stunner resulted in Roston Chase’ demise.
At 73-4, the team was struggling to survive even the first session when Jermaine Blackwood got together with Brathwaite and the duo added 28 for the fifth wicket, most importantly stopping the barrage of wickets. However, it was short-lived as Blackwood nicked one to the wicketkeeper off a Nauman Ali straighter one giving the left-arm spinner his first wicket of the innings.
Kyle Mayers, who had got three ducks in three innings prior to this one, decided to fight it out and even as Brathwaite was dismissed just after lunch, caught at point by Fawad Alam, trying to cut a Nauman delivery, that wasn’t as short as it should ideally have been. The left-hander partnered with Holder for 46 runs, but while trying to play one shot too many, tried playing an out-swinging Shaheen delivery towards the leg side and edged it for a simple catch to Rizwan.
Holder tried to resurrect the innings and played a few glorious drives. He went on to add 40 runs with wicket-keeper batter da Sliva. However, a plan was set up by the Pakistanis making the tall man drive to flighted delivered from the left-arm spinner and fell in the trap driving one straight to Faawad at short cover. Soon after Kemar Roach, the hero from the last game was also trapped LBW by Shaheen, making it his ninth wicket of the match.
It wasn’t long before that his 10th wicket as well when da Sliva, trying to get one over mid-on, got it straight into his hands and Windies were bowled out for 219. For his 10 wicket haul, the left-arm pacer was selected Man of the Match ahead of Fawad Alam, even as the latter scored a fighting hundred in the first innings.