Rain washes out 3rd T20 between West Indies and Pakistan
Last updated on: 02 August,2021 12:22 am
Just eight balls were bowled at the start of the match with the home side reaching 15 without loss.
PROVIDENCE (AFP) - Torrential rain which left a sodden outfield resulted in the abandonment of the third Twenty 20 International between the West Indies and Pakistan at the National Stadium in Guyana on Sunday.
Just eight balls were bowled at the start of the match with the home side reaching 15 without loss off eight deliveries before showers drove the players off the field and intensified to such an extent that it left the ground waterlogged in a matter of minutes.
Extensive mopping up operations by the ground staff failed to have conditions sufficiently improved for play to resume.
The match was called off ten minutes before the scheduled cut-off time which would have allowed for the minimum requirement of a five overs-per-side match.
Pakistan lead the series 1-0 going into the final match scheduled for Tuesday at the same venue.
Babar Azam s team prevailed by seven runs in the only completed match in the series so far on Saturday at Providence.
Persistent showers also put paid to the opening game of the series in Barbados last Wednesday.
Pakistan took a 1-0 series lead by a small margin in the second game. After the washed-out first T20I, the series is now effectively a three-match clash and the visitors are only one win away.
Pakistan’s top order yet again proved to be the pillars over which the visitors’ success depended upon but it was the bowling that tacitly pulled it back for Pakistan in the second game.
However, the graph of improvement of the lower middle-order batting line-up for Pakistan has plateaued and could be an area of concern before the ICC Men s T20 World Cup later this year. Mohammad Hafeez, who leads the middle-order, has averaged 11.77 in 2021 in 12 appearances while Fakhar Zaman averages 20.33.
On the other hand, West Indies uncharacteristically struggled with changing the gears and chasing down a below-par total. Although, the Windies bowling has seen a lot of positives that exploded the visitors while conceding only 23 and picking up six wickets at the death.
In the second clash, Pakistan got off to a flier with Mohammad Rizwan’s 46 and Babar Azam’s 51. But as the rain interrupted the play and the match resumed, Pakistan crumbled to 157/8 in 20 overs after they looked on track to reach 180 at one stage.
West Indies batters struggled against the spin with Hafeez leading the way. Hafeez returned with the match-winning economical figures of 4-1-6-1 while Shadab Khan conceded only 22 in his four overs that helped Pakistan restrict the hosts to seven runs short of the target.