West Indies defeated Pakistan by seven wickets in the second match of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 at Trent Bridge in Nottingham on Friday. Oshane Thomas was declared Man of the Match for taking 4 wickets.
Winning the toss, West Indies elected to bowl first on a bouncy track. Sheldon Cottrell drew the first blood for Windies in the third over after Imam-ul-Haq (2) was caught by Shai Hope on a nothing ball.
After this, wickets fell at regular intervals with none of the Pakistani batsmen playing responsibly and throwing their wickets away.
The entire Pakistan team was bundled out for 105 runs. Top scorers from the Pakistani side were Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam who scored 22-run each.
For the West Indies, Oshane Thomas was the star with the ball, giving away 27 runs and taking 4 crucial wickets in 5.4 overs. Jason Holder, too, was impressive as he scalped 3 wickets. Andre Russell also took two wickets to help the Windies wrap Pakistan up at a low total.
Chasing a paltry 106, West Indies came all guns blazing with the likes of Chris Gayle and Shai Hope. But Mohammad Amir wrecked the Windies juggernaut by taking the wickets of Hope (11) and Darren Bravo (0).
The Caribbean side were soon reduced to 46-2 and Pakistan started hoping for a comeback. But the self-proclaimed ‘Universe Boss’ foiled their plans by hitting the ball all-around the park to humiliate the Pakistani bowlers and scored 50 off 34 balls, before falling prey to Amir.
By the time Gayle departed Windies needed only 29 runs to win the match and they did so within 14 overs without breaking a sweat.
The Pakistani side, which recently suffered a three-wicket loss to Afghanistan in the World Cup warm-up match, seemed to be struggling against short ball.
West Indies, on the other hand, took most out of the opportunity and kept bowling short to make things tougher for the Pakistani batsmen.
The only positive for the Pakistani side was that Mohammad Amir ended with the figures of 3/26 after 6 overs.