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DATE : 22-11-1991

VENUE : Gaddafi Stadium , Lahore

MATCH : 2nd ODI

Writer : B.V.Swagath

It's time to relive a fantastic yet nail biting encounter between West Indies and Pakistan that took place on the 22nd November, 1991. The venue was Gaddafi Stadium in the historical city of Lahore. It was a rain shortened game at Karachi a couple of days ago when West Indies cruised to a 24 run victory. The two teams traveled for the 2nd ODI at Lahore and along with them the Karachi rains. This series seemed to be a platform for promising young debutants like Andy Cummins and Philo Wallace in the 1st ODI at Karachi and in the 2nd ODI, a bulky young man from Multan – Inzamam Ul Haq was presented a debut for Pakistan.

Man to Man, both the teams looked to be matching each other atleast on paper. If West Indies had a pace attack of Bishop, Ambrose, Patterson and Marshall then Pakistan had an equally good pace attack in Imran Khan, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Aaqib Javed. The same could be said about the batting line ups. And with the weather being fickle, it was all the more difficult to predict who the winner would be. Imran Khan won the toss and put West Indies to bat first with the soggy outfield conditions.

The match was delayed and it was a curtailed game of 39 overs per innings. Desmond Haynes and Philo Wallace gave a solid start for the tourists, with Wallace scoring almost at run-a-ball. After the impressive start, things started to slow down for the Windies with the Pakistani bowlers getting into their groove gradually. West Indies ended with a total of 186/5 with Desmond Haynes anchoring the innings with a patient 69 off 110 balls. Wasim and Aaquib picked up 2 wickets apiece but the stand out bowler for Pakistan was the leg-spinner Mushtaq Ahmed, who gave away only 22 runs in his 8 overs quota.
 

Wickets were the key for the West Indies and Pakistan needed good partnerships to chase 187 off 39 overs. Pattrick Patterson provided the first breakthrough dismissing Aamir Sohail with Pakistan at 27/1. Debutant Inzamam ul Haq played a neat cameo of 20, but West Indies came back strongly after that. Inzamam, Salim Malik and Rameez Raja were all dismissed with an addition of just 1 run and the score was now at 70/4. But a determined batsmanship from skipper Imran Khan and Ijaz Ahmed brought Pakistan back into the game. Curtly Ambrose finally broke the threatening partnership of 47 by dismissing Ijaz for 27 and Pakistan at 117/5. A couple of useful partnerships of 19 and 25 respectively followed with Imran Khan controlling the match situation beautifully. But the turning point of the match came with Patterson in his comeback spell got the big wicket of Imran Khan. Imran was out for 51 off 67 balls and three boundaries. Pakistan slumped to 171/7 now, still in need of 16 runs. But West Indies made sure Pakistan weren’t going to get those 16 runs easily. Moin Khan was out in the meanwhile to make life tough for the Pakistan side. The final ball of the final over and Pakistan needed 2 runs from it to win. Mushtaq Ahmed ran the first run hard but while coming back for the second and the winning run, found himself short of ground and was run out. Pakistan’s innings ended at 186/9 and as a result of that the match ended in an unbelievable TIE. Malcolm Marshall was the pick of the bowlers with 3 to show in his wickets column. Man of the Match was Desmond Haynes for his valuable half century.

This was ODI no. 690 and the second tied ODI in which West Indies was involved according to our Cricketfundas.com's Statistician.
 

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