Castries, St Lucia : The fever of Twenty20 cricket will be carried to the Caribbean, as Pakistan and West Indies go head to head on Thursday, April 21, for a lone Twenty20 match of bilateralseries, at Beausejour Stadium, St Lucia. They will later play five One Day Internationals and two Testmatches.
The last time both teams met was in 2011 ICC World Cup, but West Indies don’t want to remember that match. They lost by 10 wickets, as their batsmen were unable to post a challenging target for Pakistan. However, situation will be entirely different now, as they are hosts of series and proved tobe a difficult opposition when it comes to playing on home soil.
Pakistan will be confident of performing well. They have been terrific in shortest version of the gameand always qualified for top-four of Twenty20 World Cups.
Pakistan made changes to their squad, which they chose for World Cup. Wicketkeeper batsman Kamran Akmal and star all-rounder Abdul Razzaq were dropped from the side, following their poor run of form in the recent past. Pace bowler Umar Gul and batsman Younis Khan are also not part of team here and were rested to give a chance to some youngsters.
They have prolific young players like Ahmed Shehzad, Asad Shafiq & Umar Akmal, who have ability to do well in any form of cricket. They also have experience of Mohammad Hafeez, Misbahul Haq & captain Shahid Afridi.
Fast bowling has always been Pakistan's strength, but they will rely on spinners this time around. Abdur Rehman, Saeed Ajmal, Hafeez and Afridi are all good spinners and will look forward to make most of slow pitches in the Caribbean Islands.
West Indies led by all-rounder Darren Sammy will not have senior players Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwanand Shivnarine Chanderpaul for the series. Sammy will eye some good performances from youngsters Darren Bravo, Lendl Simmons, Devendra Bishoo & Andre Russell. Marlon Samuels returns to squad after completing his two-year ban by International Cricket Council following links with book-makers.PPI
