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| December 02, 2006 | Saturday | Ziqa'ad 10, 1427 |
Windies crash to 199-run defeat as Pakistan wrap up Test series 2-0
KARACHI, Dec 1: Pakistan encountered stiff resistance from the West Indies before pulling off a fine 199-run victory in the third and final cricket Test at the National Stadium here on Friday.
The West Indies, chasing a mammoth 444, were bowled for 244 in their second innings after resuming on the fifth and final day at 39 for two, giving Pakistan a 2-0 win in the series. The hosts had won the first Test in Lahore by nine wickets while the second in Multan was drawn.
Abdul Razzaq, playing in his 46th Test, finished the game in style by deceiving Corey Collymore with a reverse swinging delivery that caught the last man plumb in front for a duck. The dismissal was an appropriate gift for the all-rounder, who turns 27 on Saturday, as he became the 13th Pakistani to capture 100 Test wickets.
Leg-spinner Danish Kaneria grabbed three wickets for 69 runs while opening fast bowlers Umar Gul and Shahid Nazir along with Razzaq chipped in with two apiece to ensure West Indies ended the year without a victory in their 10 Tests (five defeats).
Pakistan, on the other hand, finished 2006 by winning five Test matches out of the 12 played, suffering three defeats – all on the disastrous tour of England – and drawing five.
On Friday morning, the West Indies resumed their second innings amid hopes of skipper Brian Lara and vice captain Ramnaresh Sarwan keeping Pakistan attack at bay and saving the Karachi Test.
But nothing of that sort happened and, apart from Shivnarine Chanderpaul (69 off 111 balls, nine fours), none of the West Indian batsmen managed to bat long enough to deny Pakistan a well-deserved win.
The West Indies’ woes were further compounded when Sarwan failed to avoid an unplayable yorker from Umar Gul and received a nasty blow on the right foot.
Later, he was diagnosed a hairline fracture and was ruled out of the five-match One-day International series which commences from Dec 5. Sarwan had played a dogged innings of 35 off 81 balls including seven fours until then and looked all set for a big innings.
The injury came as a huge blow for the tourists since it came on the heels of Lara’s dismissal who misjudged a good length delivery from Umar Gul and was caught at short cover by Shoaib Malik who held a nice catch low to his left.
Lara’s departure – 47 short of becoming Test cricket’s first player with 12,000 runs – was a personal disappointment for the West Indian captain who was looking to end his final series against Pakistan on a high note, especially after setting alight the first two Tests with scores of 61, 122 and a memorable 216.
The impressive Umar Gul, the most successful bowler on either side in the series with 16 wickets, had also dismissed the 37-year-old left-hander in the first innings here for a second-ball duck.
The West Indies never really recovered from the setbacks as Pakistan continued to make inroads into their batting with a number of catches also going down.
Runako Morton hardly has the making of a Test batsman and it was no surprise to see him getting baffled by Kaneria’s repertoire. Having hit the spinner for 16 runs in an over, Morton’s aggressiveness got the better of him in the next over when he lobbed a return catch off the lanky leg-spinner.Chanderpaul and Dwayne Bravo, the last of the recognized batsmen, held up Pakistan for a further 75 minutes until a Shahid Nazir leg-cutter forced the all-rounder to grope hopelessly outside the off stump and give Younis Khan a regulation catch at second slip.
The fifth-wicket stand realized 57 runs, which turned to be the second best of the innings behind the 80-run partnership for the third-wicket between Lara and Sarwan.
In fact Bravo (26 off 56 balls) was the only man to be dismissed in the afternoon session during which 72 runs were scored before West Indies went fir tea at 226 for five.
At that stage it appeared West Indies may get some help from the nature as cloud cover had engulfed the ground, forcing the umpires to use floodlights shortly before the tea interval.
But Kaneria struck twice in two balls in the second over after the break to bring the hosts closer to victory. Chanderpaul was leg-before-wicket to a ball that came into the left-hander from outside the off stump.
Off the very next ball, Kaneria forced Daren Powell to miss a googly that struck the tailender on the pad first before striking part of his bat. Younis dived forward to pluck a superb catch inches off the turf.
It was then left to Razzaq, who for the first time looked threatening with the ball, to polish off the tail by disposing of Jerome Taylor and Collymore while Denesh Ramdin was left high and dry on 25.
At the end of it all, Mohammad Yousuf, the man of the moment, overwhelmingly dominated the presentation ceremony with countless number of awards coming his way for an outstanding year in Test cricket. Within a matter of minutes, he was richer by a whopping Rs 6.6 million rupees. His Man-of-the-Series award fetched him a black colour 1300cc car for being named the undisputed Man-of-the-Series.
The big-scoring Yousuf, who deservedly also won the Man-of-the-Match award, made all the difference between these teams with a tally of 665 runs in the series.
The 32-year-old right-hander, who has now amassed 6402 runs (average 56.65) in 73 Tests with 23 hundreds, hit a century in each innings here and broke the 30-year-old longstanding world record of West Indian great Viv Richards with 1,788 Test runs in a calendar year. Moreover, he also set a new record with his nine centuries in 2006.
Scoreboard
PAKISTAN (1st Innings) 304 (Mohammad Yousuf 102).
WEST INDIES (1st Innings) 260 (D. Ganga 81, D. Ramdin 50; Umar Gul 4-79).
PAKISTAN (2nd Innings) 399-6 declared (Mohammad Yousuf 124, Mohammad Hafeez 104, Inzamam-ul-Haq 58 not out).
WEST INDIES (2nd Innings, overnight 39-2):
C.H. Gayle b Umar Gul 2
D. Ganga lbw b Shahid Nazir 2
B.C. Lara c Shoaib b Umar Gul 49
R.R. Sarwan retired hurt 35
S. Chanderpaul lbw b Kaneria 69
R.S. Morton c and b Kaneria 16
D.J. Bravo c Younis b Shahid Nazir 26
D. Ramdin not out 25
D.B. Powell c Younis b Kaneria 0
J.E. Taylor lbw b Abdul Razzaq 1
C.D. Collymore lbw b Abdul Razzaq 0
EXTRAS (B-9, LB-5, NB-5) 19
TOTAL (all out, 76 overs) 244
FALL OF WKTS: 1-2, 2-17, 3-97, 4-126, 5-183, 6-227, 7-227, 8-236, 9-244.
BOWLING: Umar Gul 19-2-89-2 (3nb); Shahid Nazir 18-6-49-2 (2nb); Danish Kaneria 26-6-69-3; Shoaib Malik 1-1-0-0; Abdul Razzaq 12-5-23-2.
NOTE: Sarwan retired hurt at 101-3.
RESULT: Pakistan won by 199 runs.
UMPIRES: D.J. Harper (Australia) and M.R. Benson (England).
TV UMPIRE: Riazuddin (Pakistan).
MATCH REFEREE: R.S. Mahanama (Sri Lanka).
MAN-OF-THE-MATCH: Mohammad Yousuf.
MAN-OF-THE-SERIES: Mohammad Yousuf.
FIRST TEST: Lahore, Pakistan won by nine wickets.
SECOND TEST: Multan, match drawn.
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