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| December 11, 2006 | Monday | Ziqa'ad 19, 1427 |
Imran, Rana sizzle as Pakistan thump Windies to make it 2-0
LAHORE, Dec 10: An aggressive 58 from opener Imran Farhat and some lethal bowling by Rana Naved-ul-Hasan guided Pakistan to a seven-wicket victory over the West Indies in third One-day International at the packed Gaddafi Stadium here on Sunday.
Imran cracked two sixes and five boundaries in a 72-ball innings as Pakistan reached the revised target of 191 in 33.4 overs with 2.2 overs to spare after the Duckworth/Lewis method had been applied to the game following a 66-minute power breakdown in the match.
Earlier, the West Indies were forced to finish off their innings at 207-7 in 46.3 overs when play was stopped due to floodlight towers going off on a murky afternoon.
Later, a revised target of 190 off 36 over was set for Pakistan at 5.45 run-rat per over. Both the openers Imran and Mohammad Hafeez, survived some anxious moments in the early stages of the innings to give Pakistan a good start of 64 off 77 balls.
Hafeez (31 off 43 balls with two fours, one six) was then dropped by Lendl Simmons on 10 at short-square-leg off Ian Bradshaw but the young all-rounder followed it up with a big six off Chris Gayle over the midwicket. He, however, fell to a reckless stroke when he tried to needlessly repeat the feat off Jerome Taylor and was caught inches away from the boundary.
Kamran Akmal (23 off 20 balls), who was the next man in, played briskly to maintain the run-flow alongwith Imran as Pakistan crossed the 100-run mark in just 18.4 overs. But at 103, Kamran was caught behind by Denesh Ramdin off Gayle for a hard-hitting but risky innings of 58.
Imran, who survived a huge leg before appeal off Corey Colleymore, cracked a mighty six over the long-off boundary off the same bowler before being eventually removed by him as Samuels grabbed a fine catch in the outfield.
It was left to the experience Mohammad Yousuf (28 not out) and the dashing Shoaib Malik (21 not out) to see Pakistan home.
Earlier, a sensible 130-ball 70 from Lendl Simmons and a blazing 37-ball 41 by Chris Gayle helped West Indies to reach at a fighting total of 207-7 in 46.3 despite some hostile bowling from Man of the Match Rana Naved who bagged three wickets.
Simmons and Gayle gave the packed-to-capacity crowd a lot to cheeer about after the West Indies had made yet another wobbly start to their innings.
The visitors suffered an early blow when they lost skipper Brian Lara, who surprised many by opening the innings - for afirst-ball duck off Rana Naved. Lara, who required just 38 to complete his 10,000 runs in ODIs was trapped leg before on a fuller length delivery that was bowled at a good pace.
Gayle and Simmons, however, shrugged off the huge setback to go on attack against the Pakistani bowlers as visitors raced to 50-run mark off just 40 balls. The tall West Indian took off 13 runs in Umar’s third over smacking three cracking boundaries off him. He then tore into Rana in the following over, hitting the Sheikhupura bowler for three scorching boundaries and a mighty six over the midwicket.
Rana, however, took sweet revenge in his next over when he trapped Gayle leg before wicket for 41 (seven fours, one six) with the total at 53. Gayle’s departure forced the tourists to apply the the brakes as Simmons and Marlon Samuels relied on singles and twos to steady the innings. Samuels then brought major damage to Pakistan when one of his ferocious drives crashed into skipper Inzamam’s left-hand finger, forcing him to leave the ground with the wound profusely bleeding.
He later had three stitches in his hand and was in great pain according to information reaching from the hospital.
Samuels was finally caught by Imran off medium-pacer Rao Iftikharto reduce the West Indies to 72-3. Imran’s ‘catch’ however became controversial when the TV replays suggested that the ball was possibly grassed during the attempt. Umpire Asad Rauf consulted with Nigel Llong, instead of referring it to the third umpire, before ruling Samuels out. After Samuel’s departure, he added a valuable 61 in fourth-wicket stand with Daren Ganga (20 off 41 balls) taking the total to 133 in the 29th over.
The partnership was broken by promising left-arm spinner Abdur Rehman who clean bowled Ganga with a well-pitched delivery and then removed new man Runako Morton (7) in similar fashion, reducing the visitors to 159-5.
Simmons with Dwayne Smith, who cracked the second six of the innings off Umar Gul at deep-square-leg, took the total to 187. Umar then clean bowled Smith (23) while Simmons was the last man out when he danced down to the wicket to Rana Naved only to get deceived by the delivery with his off-stump uprooted. New man Bradshaw could only play one ball before the power failure occurred and bad light ended the innings, depriving the visitors of their last 3.3 overs.
Rana Naved finished with three for 37 while Abdul Razzaq captured two for 25 as Pakistan went up 2-0 in the five-match series.
Scoreboard
WEST INDIES
C.H. Gayle lbw b Naved 41
B.C. Lara lbw b Naved 0
L. Simmons b Naved 70
M. Samuels c Farhat b Iftikhar 13
D. Ganga b Rehman 20
R. Morton b Rehman 7
D. Smith b Gul 23
D.S. Ramdin not out 10
I. Bradshaw not out 0
EXTRAS: (lb-3, nb-6, w-14) 23
TOTAL: (for seven wkts) 207
FALL OF WKTS: 1-1, 2-53, 3-72, 4-133, 5-159, 6-187, 7-207.
DID NOT BAT: J. Taylor, C. Collymore
BOWLING: Gul 8-0-46-1, Naved 8.3-3-37-3, Iftikhar 7-1-21-1, Razzaq 5-1-25-0, Rehman 10-2-33-2, Malik 5-0-29-0, Hafeez 3-0-13-0.
PAKISTAN
Mohammad Hafeez c Taylor b Gayle 31
Imran Farhat c Samuels b Collymore 58
Kamran Akmal c Ramdin b Gayle 23
Mohammad Yousuf not out 28
Shoaib Malik not out 21
EXTRAS (b-1, lb-13, w-17) 31
TOTAL (for 3 wickets, 33.4 overs) 192
FALL OF WKTS: 1-64, 2-103, 3-148
DID NOT BAT: Inzamam-ul-Haq, A. Razzaq, Naved-ul-Hasan, A. Rehman, I. Anjum, U. Gul.
BOWLING: Taylor 7-0-28-0 (w-2), I. Bradshaw 6.4-0-39-0 (w-6), C. Gayle 6-0-32-2, D. Smith 6-0-47-0 (w-3), C. Collymore 7-1-23-1 (w-2), M. Samuels 1-0-9-0.
UMPIRES: Nigel Llong (ENG), Asad Rauf (PAK)
TELEVISION UMPIRE: Zameer Haider (PAK)
MATCH REFEREE: Alan Hurst (AUS).
—Agencies
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