Pakistan beat West Indies in World Cup warm-up

PAKISTAN comfortably defeated the West Indies by seven wickets on Monday, in their ICC T20 World Cup warm-up match, at the ICC Academy Ground, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The West Indies will be starting the defence of their World Cup crown against England on Saturday. They play a second and final warm-up match against Afghanistan on Wednesday as they fine-tune for the defence of their crown.

The West Indies laboured to a score of 130 runs for seven wickets with just two batsmen batting at better than a run a ball.

Pakistan overhauled the target easily to close on 131/3 off 15.3 overs.

Batting first after winning the toss, the West Indies batsmen struggled to get the better of a disciplined Pakistan bowling attack, with Shimron Hetmyer topscoring with 28 (24 balls, three fours), while captain Kieron Pollard made 23 (ten balls, five fours) and veteran Chris Gayle 20 (30 balls, two fours).

Such was the accuracy of the Pakistan bowling that they only conceded one six (off Nicholas Pooran). In fact, the West Indies were tottering at 93/5 when Pooran was dismissed in the 18th over, and needed Pollard's cameo to post a reasonable total.

Pace bowlers Hasan Ali, Haris Rauf and Shaheen Afridi each took two wickets for Pakistan.

In their reply, captain Babar Azam led the way with a composed 50 (41 balls, six fours and a six), while he got useful support from Fakhar Zaman (46 not out off 24 balls with four fours and two sixes).

Leg-spinner Hayden Walsh (2/41) and evergreen pace bowler Ravi Rampaul (1/19) took the wickets for the WI.