West Indies v Pakistan – Match Preview – 4th ODI
Pakistan will be hoping to extend its dominance in the Caribbean as the tourists prepare for the fourth One Day International of the five matches series against the Calypsos on 2 May, 2011 at Birdgetown, Barbados.
The Men in Green pocketed the series with a hard fought win over the hosts in the third game of the series on a lively Kensington Oval wicket at Barbados.
The first two matches were lopsided in their favour, St.Lucia the venue for the opening skirmishes suited the Pakistani style of play as the visitors cantered to 8 and 7 wicket wins.
The spin attack led by Saeed Ajmal and Mohammad Hafeez troubled the inexperienced Windies.
The bowling line-up sans Devendra Bishoo struggled greatly against the Pakistani batsmen in the first two games, however, a fired up Ravi Rampaul made the most of the conditions at Barbados, sending the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Green-c60723 Caps packing.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Misbah-ul-Haq-c1972 was at the rescue once again, he pulled his team out from a precarious position and took them past the target with an unbeaten half century.
The aged right hander has thus far proven to be ‘the wall’ of Pakistan; he remained unbeaten in three matches of the series with a top score of 73 in the first match.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Khan-c71319 for the fourth match, the left-hand opening batsman Taufeeq Umar and the first class debutant Tanvir Ahmed will be replacing them.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482 the Pakistani captain is elated with the performance of his team so far, he hopes that his troops would continue their work and pull off a whitewash.
Afridi, however, warned them that complacency can affect all the work done in the first three games.
On the other hand the West Indian camp is l*****g its wounds after another disappointing performance against a leading International team.
The captain of the team Darren Sammy who has had a wretched time with both bat and ball thinks that the team needs to be backed by the fans and management as it comprises of youngsters who are still learning the nuances of the game.
“The way forward is to gain experience. This group is not short on talent, we need to play and get more consistency." Sammy stated after the third match.
The West Indian selection panel has inducted seasoned middle order batsman Ramnaresh Sarwan in the team for the last two matches, the right hander was made to sit out the first three games due to his indifferent form in the World Cup,
however with the repeated failures of the younger batsmen the selectors had to revert back to him.
Sarwan will be replacing Devon Smith, who was Hafeez’s bunny in the three matches, falling lbw to him on each occasion for a paltry score. Interestingly, Smith was dismissed by the same bowler in the same fashion at the World Cup quarterfinal
also.
The following are the two expected line-ups for the fourth match.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 (possible) 1 Lendl Simmons (wk), 2 Kirk Edwards, 3 Darren Bravo, 4 Ramnaresh Sarwan, 5 Marlon Samuels, 6 Dwayne Bravo, 7 Darren Sammy (capt) 8 Ravi Rampaul, 9 Kemar Roach, 10 Devendra Bishoo, 11 Anthony
Martin
Pakistan (possible) 1 Mohammad Hafeez, 2 Ahmed Shehzad, 3 Taufeeq Umar, 4 Misbah-ul-Haq, 5 Umar Akmal, 6 Hammad Azam, 7 Shahid Afridi (capt), 8 Mohammad Salman (wk), 8 Wahab Riaz, 9 Saeed Ajmal, 11 Tanvir Ahmed
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