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In addition to the 90-run defeat against West Indies at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Trinidad and Tobago, Pakistan suffered another major blow as their former skipper and in-form batter Shan Masood suffered a serious injury, which makes him uncertain for the remainder of the series.
After the West Indies vs Pakistan 1st Test match, skipper Babar Azam informed that Shan Masood’s injury was a fractured finger. Masood fractured his finger while batting during the first innings of the match.
Shan Masood scored a century in the first innings vs West Indies
Shan Masood was one of the best batters for the Pakistan cricket team as he scored a century in the first innings of the match. Masood returned with 109 off 184 balls and probably with an injured finger, as Babar Azam informed at the presentation ceremony.
“Yes, Shan Masood’s injury affected us because, unfortunately, his finger is fractured, so we definitely missed him," Babar confirmed.
In the second innings, when Pakistan needed only 211 runs to win the match of the World Test Championship (WTC), Shan Masood came down the batting order as the No. 8 batter of the team, which raised speculations over his fitness.
Babar Azam blames batters for the defeat against West Indies
Because of the heavy defeat against West Indies, Pakistan captain Babar Azam accused the top-order batting combination of not stitching any significant partnership that could uphold some resistance against the home team's bowling attack.
"We played good cricket in the last few days, but today we were not up to the mark as a batting unit... the surface is good, and we expected the new ball to move, for which we were prepared ... but I think they bowled very well and used the conditions nicely," he added.
In both of the innings, the Caribbean bowling attack miraculously dragged West Indies back in the contest. In the first innings, Justin Greaves took five consecutive maiden-over wickets to dismantle the touring team's batting order.
"At the same time, when you’re facing the new ball, you have to survive the first 20 overs, build partnerships, and then, as the ball gets older, the pitch becomes easier to bat on. We couldn’t put together those partnerships," he added.
West Indies pacers shifted the momentum of the match on multiple occasions
In the second innings, Jayden Seales' 5-fer poured water on all the hopes of the Men in Green. Babar himself batted well in the second innings, remained not out for 58 off 107, but lacked a proper partner on the opposite end of the wicket. Apart from Babar, Muhammad Rizwan (11) and Mohammad Abbas (23) were the only two batters who got runs in two digits in the run chase.
Ahead of the second match, the Pakistan skipper will address the mistakes they made in the first innings to avoid them in the upcoming matches to improve their position in the WTC rankings.
"We’ll sit together and discuss these things because, while the result didn’t go our way, we can certainly address our mistakes. We’ll do our best to correct them and ensure we improve going forward," Babar stated.
