West Indies Vs Pakistan, Group D

The world cup is of to a rollicking start with the West Indies beating Pakistan by 54 runs. Both teams have mercurial temperament and are consistently inconsistent. Both teams can beat anybody on their good days and could lose to any team on their bad days.

On this particular day, Pakistan won the toss and asked the Windies to bat. The Windies then proceeded to make heavy weather of it. The Pakistani bowling was pretty good for the most part. Samuels has been in pretty good form and once again he played a solid innings in the middle overs to stabilize the West Indian innings with Lara. Though at the innings break everyone was talking about how the Windies needed about 30 more runs, the fact that they got to 241 in the first place was due to a fantastic cameo from Dwayne Smith. Smith hit a rapid fire 32 from 15 balls and saw the Windies to a defensible total. The West Indians scored about 58 runs in the last 5 overs.

Pakistan's innings started off with a bang (a huge six by Imran Nazir) and ended in a whimper. Nazir, Hafeez and Younis Khan (who played a terrible shot) fell in quick order. Though Inzi and Yousuf built a partnership, it wasn't enough and they didn't get a chance to free their arms after getting all set. Their fall hastened Pakistan's demise. Shoaib Malik played a good innings but the result was not in any doubt by that time. Windies bowled really well. They stuck to their line and length and were electric in the field. Bravo's caught and bowled wicket of Umar Gul was just fantastic. In contrast to this Pakistan's fielding was bad. Younis Khan dropped a catch of Sarwan of the very first ball. Sarwan went on to make 49 runs.

The West Indians exposed every chink in Pakistan's armour. Pakistan's weakest link - Rana Naved -was targeted for 49 runs. The Pakistani opening pair wickets were captured quickly and that put a lot of pressure on the middle order. Pakistan did not do itself any favors either. Pakistan's best bowler in the match, Umar Gul, did not complete his 10 over quota. Asked about Pakistan's opening pair problems, we were flabbergasted to hear Inzi say that they were mixing and matching to see what their best pair would be. No Inzi. You don't "mix and match" openers in the world cup to see who your best opening pair is. You do that before the world cup starts.

The presence of all-rounders in the one-day team serves Pakistan well. So, it was strange to see that they left out Azhar Mahmood but included Rana Naved. Rana Naved then proceeded to have a horrendous day in the field. It was also very surprising to see that Sami was not in the team. Inzi and Yousuf eschewed pushing for singles. Inzi is not known for his running between the wickets but there were several instances where they missed out on easy runs because they refused to run hard. Because they missed out on easy runs, they (Inzi and Yousuf) had to go for the big hits. This cost Yousuf his wicket after he was well set.

However, all is not lost for Pakistan. Afridi will be back in the team soon and that should bolster their batting and bowling a little bit. They could drop Danish Kaneria (who had a disappointing day) since Hafeez, Malik, and Afridi would serve as the spin option and play a batsman or a bowler. They should also drop Rana Naved for Azhar Mahmood or Sami. Pakistan will make the super 8 and though this loss hurts, they still remain in contention.

This win should give the West Indies confidence and that might be a problem. West Indies does not deal with confidence well. Their 'confidence' almost always becomes 'over confidence' and they implode spectacularly. Lara's job as the captain is to see that they don't lapse into over confidence for the coming matches.