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Windies tottering after early blows

Ahmedabad, March 23: After Pakistan's new ball pair of pacer Umar Gul and off-break Mohammad Hafeez dealt the Windies some early blows, the batting side was struggling to recover, having reached just 60/4 in 25 overs.The West Indies innings didn't get off to the best of starts. Although Devon Smith smacked Umar Gul for a four in the first ball of the innings and Chris Gayle bludgeoned a couple more boundaries, the latter batsman was caught by Shahid Afridi (off Gul) for 8 as the Windies score read 14/1 in 2.5 overs. But there was more trouble almost straight away. In the 6th over, Mohammad Hafeez effected a double strike, first trapping Devon Smith in front for 7 and then dismissing Darren Bravo in a similar manner, for a duck. West Indies had slid to 16/3 in 5.4 overs. Then Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul began to rebuild, but very slowly as the score read 18/3 after 10 overs.

However, in the 13th over, Sarwan struck a couple of boundaries off Wahab Riaz. In the 19th over, the same batsman came in for a bit of luck when Gul put down a catch at extra cover off Afridi. The Windies finally reached 50/3 in the 21st over when Chanderpaul ran a single off Afridi.

But just a couple of overs later, Afridi induced Sarwan into a cut shot which the batsman played straight into the hands of Gul at point. The Windies were in dire straits at 58/4 in the 25th over when Kieron Pollard came to the crease. 

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