West Indies vs Pakistan, 3rd ODI: Five best performers

When two of the strongest, yet unpredictable, sides take the field, you could expect a lot of twists and turns. Most fans tuned in to watch this epic third match between West Indies and Pakistan at St.Lucia expecting a close tussle. With the the series tied at 1-1, this match was well set up.

West Indies had won the toss and put the visitors in to bat on a sluggish pitch. As has been the situation in both the previous matches, the Pakistani team struggled to finally end up with 229. The West Indies also failed to impress with the bat and were staring down the barrel, needing 39 to win of the last three overs with two wickets in hand.

Yes, this is when you throw in the towel and switch off the television set if you are a West Indian fan. But the West Indies were able to pull of an amazing tie which left the Pakistani team and cricket watchers all over the world stunned. This is ODI cricket folks!

Here are the five best performers of the match:

5) Misbah-ul-haq

Pakistan’s captain courageous. In a tough situation, he will stand up more often than not. And he has had a lot of standing up to do in the past year or so for Pakistan. Coming in at the fall of Nasir Jamshed‘s wicket, he stitched together useful partnerships – first with Mohammed Hafeez and then with debutant Haris Sohail. Making a well-compiled 75 of 112 balls, he was yet again instrumental in taking Pakistan to a respectable score.

4) Umar Akmal

The pocket-sized dynamo from Pakistan always promises much, but delivers very little. Thankfully for Pakistan, today he did deliver.

In a masterful display of power hitting, he gave the much-needed final impetus to the innings. In the 47th over, he took on the West Indies skipper Bravo and smashed him for three fours, showing off his precocious talent. Blasting 40 of 31 balls with a strike rate of 129, he showed the other Pakistani batsmen just how it’s done.

3) Lendl Simmons

Walking in at 50/3 after 16 overs, Simmons had to play out of his skin to take the West Indies closer to victory. That they had already lost Gayle, Charles and Darren Bravo, and that he was going to have to play most of the remaining overs of Saeed Ajmal was definitely not going to help.

But Simmons managed to play an innings that not only kept up with the required run rate, but also provided the much-required calm in the middle of the innings. With this score of 75(86), we should see a lot of him in the times to come.

2) Saeed Ajmal

If there is a magic bowler in world cricket at the moment, it has got to be Saeed Ajmal. Captain Misbah, well aware of the situation that his team were in, held back the overs of Ajmal for the later part of the game.

With figures of 3/36 off 10 overs, he broke the back of the WI middle order, dismissing Simmons, who was going great guns at that point, and also picking up the wicket of captain Bravo. He also got Sunil Narine out, who was threatening to take the game away from them. He had taken Pakistan to the brink of victory.

1) Jason Holder

At 6’7″, Jason Holder used his height well today, banging the ball into the pitch, searching for whatever help he could get off it. Getting Shehzad out early and then coming back to dismiss the dangerous Afridi, he had done his job for the day. Or so he would have thought.

But when he came in to bat, West Indies needed 24 off 12 balls to win the match. Holder was able to smash 19 of these to salvage an incredible draw for his side. He was able to put Wahab Riaz to the sword, and pulled his side home setting off huge celebrations in the the Caribbean.