Sami Chaudhry's column on Pakistan vs West Indies T20 series: 'The problem was not in Pollard's bat'

When Pollard changed his bat for the first time, a wave of smiles ran through the faces of many in the West Indian dressing room and in the audience. It was thought that the flood of sixes would start as soon as it changed and the West Indian innings, which was falling far behind the match, would come to life.

But even after the change, nothing happened as expected of this 'smile'.

But a few moments later, Pollard thought of changing the bat again, and as he gestured to the dressing room for the change, it was clear from his face that the problem today was probably not in the bat, but in himself. And there is more to this wicket than that.

Except for Babar Azam, Mohammad Rizwan and Nicholas Puran, no one could understand the trick of this wicket. There was such a slowness that no one could walk properly. Whoever tried to open his hand, the wicket shook hands with him.

So, the final stages of the innings where Pakistan had planned the power hitting and had also cut the first fifteen overs for them brought nothing but death overs disappointment.

Nothing satisfactory could be part of Pakistan's scoreboard as they lost six wickets for just 23 runs off 24 balls.

By the way, the nature of cricket is such that no combination guarantees a sure victory, but still it was a competitive combination in terms of wickets.

But the greatness of West Indian Power Hunting has now become an established fact of T20 cricket.

This ability of West Indian batting is no longer in need of discussion. No combination can be satisfactory in the face of such an aggressive batting line.

But the open-mindedness with which Babar Azam used his bowlers proved to be the best example of captaincy.

The most beautiful thing he did was to start the attack with Muhammad Hafeez. At such a slow wicket, when the speed is already squeezed from the ball in the over, the dreams of the openers begin to wither. In the first over, Mohammad Hafeez set the tone of the match and left it on the nerves of the West Indies batting till the last ball.

Because Pakistani bowling also maintained the same tone except for two or three overs. Hassan Ali even gave up his hopes of batting for the West Indies. But in the meanwhile Puran realized that it was necessary to stay on the wicket.

Puran's innings were the most interesting and beautiful thing of this match.

The attention and skill he displayed in death overs is a great example of resilience and confidence in responding to pressure. After a safe start, when they adjusted to the speed of the wicket, they began to decide the fate of each ball at will.

But there are some balls whose fate cannot be decided by the batsman because the bowler's mind is moving ahead of the batsman.

On such slow and slow bounce wickets, if an expert seamer manages to throw yorkers at a speed of about 150 km per hour, then even a 'set' batsman like Puran can get hit. Afridi's yorkers really deserved to win because Afridi's mind was going beyond porn.