Tony Becca, Contributing Editor
Victorious Pakistan players leave the field after their second Test win over the West Indies at Sabina Park yesterday. The triumph saw them draw the two match series 1-1. - JUNIOR DOWIE/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
PAKISTAN ENDED their short two-match Digicel Series against the West Indies on a winning note when, as expected after Danish Kaneria's brilliant bowling on the fourth day, they defeated the home team by an impressive 136 runs at Sabina Park yesterday.
Starting the day with the West Indies needing another 166 to win the match with only four wickets in hand, Pakistan eased to victory in 51 minutes and 12.5 overs - the end coming, after an early start, at 10.26 when Tino Best hit at pacer Shabbir Ahmed and was caught by Shahid Afridi at wide mid-off.
Final scores: Pakistan 374 and 309, West Indies 404 and 143.
In winning the match after losing the first Test at Kensington Oval by 276 runs in four days, Pakistan not only shared a series for only the second time in seven contests in the Caribbean, but in doing so also ticked off their first victory in three tries at Sabina Park.
In losing the match and thus missing an opportunity to win a series, not against Zimbabwe or Bangladesh but against one of the world's top teams for the first time in many moons, the West Indies, after falling for 47 in the second innings and losing to England last year, suffered their second straight defeat at Sabina Park and only their eighth in 42 matches since the first Test there in 1930.
Resuming at 114 for six with Courtney Browne on eight and Daren Powell on four, the West Indies, with all their specialist batsmen gone and despite the glorious uncertainty of the game, realistically had one chance of escaping defeat.
That one chance was rain - and plenty of it.
Unfortunately for the Windies, when the lanky Shabbir, the one reported for a suspect action, ran in from the northern end to deliver the first ball of the morning, the sun was out in all its glory and that was that as Shabbir picked up three wickets for 15 runs in 6.5 overs to finish with innings figures of four for 55 off 18.5 overs and Kaneria one for 10 off six overs to finish with five for 46 off 20 testing overs.
Powell, looking like a man who was not prepared to go without a fight, pulled Shabbir, in his second over, high to the mid-wicket boundary, and Browne, out first ball in the first innings, looked good stroking the ball into the covers.
KANERIA THE DESTROYER
Twenty-seven minutes into the day's play, however, Kaneria, the man who hypnotised and then destroyed, in order, Ramnaresh Sarwan for eight, Brian Lara for zero, Shivnarine Chanderpaul for zero and Devon Smith for 49, the second Pakistani, behind the great Imran Khan, to take five wickets in an innings at Sabina Park, and only the second Hindu ever to represent Pakistan, sent Powell on his way the right-hander playing forward to the right-hander bowling round the wicket and falling leg before wicket to a well-pitched googly at 126 for seven in the 48th over.
In the following over, Browne was also gone and so too Reon King.
SCOREBOARD
Pakistan first innings 374
West Indies first innings 404 Pakistan second innings 309
West Indies second innings (Resumed at 114-6)
C. Browne c Akmal b Ahmed 10
D. Powell c Hameed b Kaneria 12
T. Best c Afridi b Ahmed 4
R. King c Akmal b Ahmed 4
C. Collymore not out 8
Extras (lb-4 nb-10) 14
Total (all out, 52.5 overs) 143
Fall: 1-27 2-48 3-48 4-56 5-94 6-100 7-126 8-126 9-130 10-143
Bowling: Ahmed 18.5-3-56-4 (nb-1), Razzaq 14-5-37-1 (nb-7), Kaneria 20-8-46-5.Result: Pakistan won by 136 runs.
