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Weary West Indies bank on T20 form
Darren Sammy
In what has been a disappointing home season for West Indies, with the twin failures in the tri-series and a 3-1 defeat in the one-day series to Pakistan, the hosts have a chance to salvage pride in a format that hasn’t let them down in recent months – Twenty20.
Since winning the World T20 in Sri Lanka last year, West Indies have not dropped a single game, and with history on their side, nothing less than a 2-0 triumph will be enough to bring some cheer to their fans as the islands prepare for a brace of T20s in the form of the Caribbean Premier League, which gets underway two days after the two back-to-back games against Pakistan.
Save for series victories against unfancied Zimbabwe at home, West Indies have been a letdown against better opposition, starting from the Champions Trophy. The expectations were raised after winning a world title last year and winning six consecutive Tests (albeit against the weaker sides).
Fatigue was one of the factors attributed to their slump, with several key batsmen like Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo taking active part in the IPL and other leagues, without much rest between series. It has shown in the performances in at least two of the three players and there is very little time to turn the corner. It was a forgettable season for another reason: the decision to sacrifice Tests for more one-dayers for monetary reasons and accommodating the CPL is unpalatable for the cricket purist. It appears that T20s are the flavour of the season, starting Saturday.
Mohammed Hafeez
Not too long ago, Pakistan had endured a similar slump, bowing out of the Champions Trophy without a win. Commonsense prevailed when the selectors chose not to make the captain the scapegoat and instead recalled impact players like Shahid Afridi and Umar Akmal, who made vital contributions in the one-dayers.
The batsmen had a lot to answer for after the debacle in England and in testing batting conditions in the West Indies; there was an improvement, at least in the last three games. Misbah-ul-Haq, much ridiculed for his conservative approach to batting which sometimes drastically slows down the innings, was the pivot around which the batting revolved. His one-day numbers in 2013 speak for themselves, but he is not around for the T20s. Can Pakistan be just as effective without him?
West Indies (probable) 1 Chris Gayle, 2 Johnson Charles (wk), 3 Darren Bravo, 4 Marlon Samuels, 5 Lendl Simmons, 6 Kieron Pollard, 7 Dwayne Bravo, 8 Darren Sammy (Captain), 9 Sunil Narine, 10 Tino Best, 11 Shannon Gabriel/Samuel Badree.
Pakistan (probable) 1 Nasir Jamshed, 2 Ahmed Shehzad, 3 Mohammad Hafeez (Captain), 4 Umar Akmal (wk), 5 Haris Sohail/ Hammad Azam, 6 Shahid Afridi, 7 Sohail Tanvir, 8 Saeed Ajmal, 9 Junaid Khan, 10 Wahab Riaz, 11 Mohammad Irfan. (ESPN cricinfo)
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