DUBAI: West Indies captain Carlos Brathwaite conceded that while they did plan for Pakistan spinning all-rounder Imad Wasim, he planned for them as well and executed his research better in the first Twenty20 International which Pakistan won comprehensively in Dubai on Friday night.

Imad became the first Pakistan spinner to take five wickets as he finished with five for 14 runs to help his side bowled out the World T20 champions for 115 in Dubai.

Pakistan then had no problems chasing that down with nine wickets and 34 balls to spare at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

In his post-match comments Brathwaite said: “I don’t want to just say we didn’t bat well, credit must go to Imad Wasim who bowled fantastically.

“Anytime you get five for 14 in an international match you must be doing something right, and to get it in a T20 international is even better.

“But these things happen. We are an aggressive team and I won’t tell any of the guys in the room to lose their aggression, it is just a matter of being more situation aware going into Saturday’s second game.

“Imad had a head start on us, playing CPL for Jamaica Tallawahs. He knew our batsmen, and we knew him as well, and planned for him, and on the day his execution was better than ours.

“We didn’t execute it the way we wanted to. On some other day those same shots could have gone for boundaries and sixes and if we were 45-50 odd for one after six overs, setting a beautiful platform to go on and score 140-150 which looked like would have been a winning total on the surface.

“We are an aggressive exciting team, when it comes off it looks fine, but you have days like these when it doesn’t come off.

“There is no blame to point, we had a slow start and we lost the game. We keep our chin up, move forward, and look ahead to the second game,” Brathwaite added.

Pakistan skipper Sarfraz Ahmed agreed with his opposite number that Imad’s plans worked well.

“Imad is an attacking bowler, he was in great form in the CPL and he knows how to bowl in the Powerplay. Our target was to attack with him,” a delighted Sarfraz commented. “We knew how the pitch will behave, it was skidding. A bit of grass on the pitch helped the spinners too. We made use of that advantage.”

Published in Dawn September 25th, 2016

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