After having a dream start to his ODI captaincy, Mohammad Rizwan sees the other side of the coin, managing only one win in the 50-over format in 2025. Pakistan have featured in 9 ODIs this year and have lost 7 of them, with one game getting washed away by rain. They have some catching up to do. Before the Asia Cup in September, the Men in Green will feature in a T20I Tri-Series involving Afghanistan and UAE.
On the other hand, plenty of things to celebrate for West Indies. They failed to win the Australia series. They lost the T20I series to Pakistan, but finally managed to win a silverware in this home season. The Shai Hope-led side is climbing up the ranks in the 50-over format. The way they performed in this game is nothing but a statement.
For now, it is me, AkshayaKrishna Polya, signing off on behalf of my co-commentator Ajay Pal Singh, scorer/analyst Ghanendra Singh Thakur and statistician Aman. We will meet again. Until then, it is cheers!
Best Bowling Figures Against Pakistan in ODIs:
6/18 - Jayden Seales (West Indies), Tarouba, 2025, Today*
6/18 - Jayden Seales vs Pakistan, Tarouba, 2025, This Match*
6/22 - Fidel Edwards vs Zimbabwe, Harare, 2003
6/27 - Kemar Roach vs Netherlands, Delhi, 2011
6/27 - Sunil Narine vs South Africa, Providence, 2016
Shai Hope collects the trophy as the rest of the team joins him to pose behind the 'Champions' hoarding. It's all smiles in the West Indies camp as they celebrate their first-ever bilateral ODI series win over Pakistan since 1991. Celebrations begin in the Windies camp.
Shai Hope (Player of the Match and West Indies Captain): "I don't think I heard you (Bazid Khan) well, but I know you are talking about my century. It was really important for us to go deep. You usually want to set the tone in the powerplay. We didn't have a great start. In that situation, it was important for someone to go deep. Wanted to give the best finish, something we struggled with in the last couple of games.
Initially, we had a target of 270-280 if we could bat well in the end. We had wickets in hand and wanted to capitalise. Credit to Justin Greaves for his contribution with the bat. We can't forget what Roston did. He gave us the impetus.
Extremely proud. We played well today and had a complete game. We usually have a habit of stressing about negatives here at home. So many positives to shout about. Great to see the guys pulling off history. I think as far as I can remember, we haven't lost an ODI series at home in the last two years.
Seales is a quality bowler. I am more excited about his preparation. He is a class act. He can move the ball both ways. He is bowling much better in the white-ball cricket. We all know what he can do with the red ball. Anything you ask him to do, he puts his hands up."
Mohammad Rizwan (Pakistan Captain): "We understood that it is the sixth innings on this wicket. Test match is of four innings, this is the third game we are playing here. If you see, till about 40 overs, we had the game under control. In the last 10 overs, they took the momentum away from us. We were thinking that we could restrict them to 220 and then our approach would have been different.
No, credit needs to given to them. We were not executing in the last 10 overs before. But this game, we executed well. The luck favoured them, Shai Hope batted well in the last few overs. He hit cleanly and credit to him.
Yes, you can say that. We can say that we don't have 5 genuine bowlers but we are lucky that in the top six we have two batters who can bowl. Salman Ali Agha and Saim Ayub, who can bowl 8-9 overs each. We had a plan to keep Abrar's last over in the end but the way Hope was hitting spinners, we decided to go with the quicks.
If you see the early wickets. Seales was bowling really well. He put us under pressure. We lost early wickets, the momentum was gone and the result is for everyone to see."
Jayden Seales (POTS): "Yeah, we had the team plans from before, just tried to stick to them to the best of our ability.
The analyst and bowling coach showed me the line that works in 50-over cricket. I practiced to get better and now reaping the awards for the work I put in.
We wanted to be on a good length and be on the stumps. Today, the bounce was up and down a bit, we wanted to bring the stumps into play.
I think it is natural for me. I have learned the length to bowl. It is about keep working on it, and keep improving. Yeah, it is difficult. It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of training. The bowling coach insists that we bowl a lot during off time, he keeps our work load high but it is working for us."