KARACHI: Pakistan defeated West Indies again, this time by eight wickets, to complete a 3-0 clean sweep of the Twenty20 International series here at the national Stadium on Tuesday night.
Chasing a target of 154, Pakistan completed their third consecutive victory with 19 balls remaining.
All four top order batsmen performed well: First Fakhar Zaman and Babar Azam laid the foundation for an easy win, scoring 61 for the first wicket, then Babar added 52 runs for the second wicket with Hussain Talat and later Hussain and Asif Ali made the remaining 41 runs for an unbeaten third wicket as Pakistan emerged victorious in 16.5 overs .
Babar, after making an unbeaten 97, scored a rapid 40-ball 51- his second successive half-century in the series. Fakhar contributed 40 as he smashed two sixes and six fours in his 17-ball brief innings.
Hussain and Asif remained not out on 31 and 25, respectively.
Earlier, the tourists elected to bat first and made a competitive total of 153 runs for six wickets, thanks to an splendid late firework by Denesh Ramdin who blasted an unbeaten 42 from just 18 balls with three towering sixes and four boundaries.
But the top scorer was opener Andre Fletcher, who made 52 off 43 balls. He also hammered three sixes and four fours as it was his team’s only half-century on the tour.
Fletcher added an invaluable 72 runs for the second wicket with Marlon Samuels who scored a 25-ball 31 with two sixes and as many boundaries. Among others, only captain Jason Mohammed could get into the double figures, scoring 13 with two fours.
Leg-spinner Shadab Khan claimed two wickets for 27 runs while left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz, right-arm pacer Faheem Ashraf and left-arm pacer Usman Khan Shinwari got one wicket each.
Two players made their T20 debuts — teenage paceman Shaheen Afridi for Pakistan and Andre McCarthy for the West Indies.
Pakistan won the first match by 143 runs and the second by 82 runs.
Karachi hosted all three T20s, the first international matches in the city in nine years.
