Tag: 20wicket

Speaking after play on Saturday, Noman said “such a match was bound to happen”, given the extreme conditions that were on offer.

“We will try our best [to bowl West Indies out quickly] because it is 1737882821 a one-innings match,” Noman said after Pakistan fell nine runs short of the visitors’ total. “In the first innings, for their last-wicket partnership, the runs that we gave away were a little extra. So we will try not to give such runs again.”

Noman said this is not something on the team’s mind, since it faced criticism even when Tests went all the way. “Even when we used to have a full five-day match before, fans criticised us a lot,” he said. “We were criticised saying the results are not coming. [But] now the results are coming. If the results are coming in two or three days, then I think [it is fine]. The results have been positive so far, and we’ll try that this match also has a positive result.”

Pakistan had West Indies at 54 for 8, before the tailenders pushed them to 163. In the first innings of the first Test, West Indies had recovered from 66 for 8 to 137. Noman said Pakistan “made some mistakes”, which they will try to avoid in the second gig.

Franklin: Both batting orders finding it difficult

“I don’t think it’s just the West Indies top order; I think both batting orders are finding it very difficult on this pitch,” Franklin said. “There’s a lot of spin, [and] a lot of bounce – sometimes it’s inconsistent as well. So when you go out there as a batter, I think the first 20-30 balls are very challenging to adapt to the wicket. I think you’ve seen batters that can get through the initial 20-30 balls and get 15-20 runs under their belts in their innings, the game all of a sudden looks a bit more comfortable from a batting point of view.”

“We’ve seen that a bit from [Mohammad] Rizwan over both Test matches, we’ve seen that a little bit from Saud Shakeel, [and] we’ve seen it from some of our bottom-order batters being able to do that. We saw that from Alick Athanaze in the first Test.”

Franklin is looking to set small targets for his batters, as they go into their second innings with a slender lead. He said it would be “very competitive” if West Indies end up posting a score in the “high hundreds, 200, [or] 200-plus”. Franklin just wanted his batters “to look at small milestones”.

“You know 30, 40-run partnerships can be quite significant in these Test matches here in Multan,” Franklin said. “We saw that in the first Test, we’re seeing that today. I think if we reflect over the three-and-a-bit days of this Test series so far, there’s only been one huge difference – and that was a 100-run [141] partnership on day one of Test one. Apart from that, it’s been very even-stevens between both sides.”