There's a lot of talk about this test (more so than the one Pakistan won) so let's see where Pakistan lost this match and where the Windies won it.
First off, it is important to note that the WI have never lost to an Asian side at Bridgetown. Why is that? Maybe it's the nature of the pitch? Or maybe it's just one of those things you can't explain but there are certain points that should be looked at. I picked out the 3 main points for both sides.
Pakistan -
1. A negative approach in the field by both the captain and the bowlers. The guiltiest party is Yasir Shah, who, for over after over, repeated the mistake from the Australia tour and bowled a negative line with a packed leg side field. He was obsessed with the rough and for some reason, bowled a line where the lbw was out of the question and if the batsman was smart, as some of them were, they could easily knock the ball away for a single.
Eventually, when Shah came over the wicket, the complexion of the game changed drastically and wickets fell in quick succession. Why did none of the senior players, in a team filled with Misbah (captain), Khan, Sarfraz (future captain) and Ali not get in Shah's ears and tell him to try something different? Were they comfortable with the lead the Windied were racking up? Or were they taking a backseat and letting someone else take the blame? THE crucial mistake of the game and THE moment that led to WI putting in a match winning lead.
2. The senior batsmen refused to step up and take the initiative. Yes Misbah struck a few beautiful boundaries but he was content with the pace his team were playing at. It looked like they were scrapping together runs to maintain an average, rather than advance against mediocre bowlers to win a game. If I can use one word to describe their spinless performance, it would be pathetic.
3. Misbah Ul-Haq. Remember that name. A terrific man manager and a great ambassador for the sport but as I have long stated, an inert and impotent test captain (think Dhoni but even less proactive). He refused to budge with his tactics of having players pushed out, rather than putting in players in slips and close in. Even when the WI were down and seemingly out, he refused, yet again, to turn the screw and allowed their batsmen to find form and to work the single...again and again. For a man of his age and his experience, in his last test series, against a midling test side, it was poor. One wonders what he spent 5 days thinking about.
West Indies -
1. Resilience. This is what their batsmen and bowlers showed at a time when their skillset and fitness was letting them down. No matter how they dropped catches or bowled their no balls, there was a grit and determination that Pakistan usually shows but here the tables were turned. Is that down to the captain, who knows? But that leads me to point 2.
2. Jason Holder. Captain of the match. When Pakistan started to crumble and lost wickets in clumps across both innings, he persisted with an adage as old as test cricket itself "wickets win you matches". He knew his only hope was striking first and striking quickly, so even as Amir struck boundaries, he kept more than one slip in and backed his bowlers to pick up the wickets...because if they can't, then what's the point of saving runs? There was enough time for Pakistan to scramble their way to a win, so why not go all out.
Holder learned how to strangle a team from Misbah but he turned the scres by himself. It reminded me of Cook learning from McCullum across the two test series between New Zealand in England. Maybe now Misbah can learn something from Holder.
3. Roston Chase. As much as this is a team sport, often time it is individuals who stand up to be counted and in this case, Chase worked a miracle. He scored a 131 runs when the next best was 58, out of a total of 312. Best of all, he refused to be cowed and he refused to be afraid. He went at a sr of 62 and looked to impose himself, rather than hide away from responsibility. The Pakistani bowlers and fielders sat in, in the typical Misbah dashion, in the hopes of the opposition making mistakes, Chase did not make many. As early as the second day, he had handed part of the game to his team.
