Shakeel and Rizwan revive Pakistan to 143-4 in 1st test against West Indies

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This article was published 17/01/2025 (443 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MULTAN, Pakistan (AP) — Half-centuries from Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan revived Pakistan to 143-4 after top-order batters stumbled in the first cricket test against West Indies on Friday.

Shakeel made a gritty unbeaten 56 and Rizwan was not out on 51 on Day 1 as they rebuilt Pakistan on a tricky dry wicket tailor-made for spinners.

The start of the test match between the two bottom-placed teams in the World Test Championship was delayed by four hours because of heavy fog and mist in Multan. Fast bowler Jayden Seales’ (3-21) triple strike then left Pakistan reeling at 46-4 inside the first hour.

But Shakeel and Rizwan steadied the innings with their unbroken 97-run stand and upped the scoring rate in an hour-long last session which produced 57 runs.

Both batters used their feet well against the three West Indies spinners and swept the bad balls for boundaries during their aggressive batting after tea.

Pakistan and West Indies packed their playing XIs with three specialist spinners each, but it was Seales who made an early impact with the new ball.

Left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie (1-45) also tied down the batters during his unchanged 14-over spell and there was appreciable turn for slow bowlers from ball one after Pakistan had won the toss and elected to bat.

Seales found the outside edge of debutant Mohammad Hurraira (6) in his third over and captain Shan Masood (11) got a faint edge down the leg-side against Motie which gave Tevin Imlach his second catch in his debut test match.

Seales consistently hit the hard lengths in his nine-over incisive opening spell and troubled Pakistan batters with his seam and swing. Kamran Ghulam (5) was ruled out leg before wicket when he offered no shot to an impeccable in-swinger just a ball after driving Seales to cover boundary for four.

Seales then made further inroads when he had the prized wicket of Babar Azam (8), who also edged behind the wicket and departed after facing 20 nervy balls.

Pakistan is at No. 8 and West Indies is at No. 9 on the WTC points table after performing under-par over the last one year in tests. Australia and South Africa have already qualified for June 11-15 WTC final at Lord’s.

Pakistan has lost eight of its last 10 test matches while West Indies has yet to win a test series in this WTC cycle, losing to India, England and South Africa and drawing against Australia and Bangladesh.

One of the two Pakistan wins came at the Multan Cricket Stadium and on the same pitch when it beat England on an engineered dry wicket to favor the spin duo of Sajid Khan and Noman Ali.

West Indies dropped vice-captain Joshua Da Silva after the wicketkeeper-batter couldn’t impress in the three-day warm-up game against Pakistan Shaheens, and the tourists are also without ill fast bowler Kemar Roach.

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AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket