Georgetown, Guyana – A capacity crowd turned out yesterday to see the West Indies record a massive victory by 10 wickets over Pakistan in the fifth Digicel One Day International.
The triumph meant the five-match Digicel Series ended 3-2 in Pakistan’s favour, but the home side gained much needed momentum ahead of the two-match Digicel Test Series.
The victory was set up by an awesome bowling display from pacer Ravi Rampaul on a lively pitch at the Guyana National Stadium. A pumped-up Rampaul took his second four-wicket haul in three matches as Pakistan fell for 139 as the vocal and colourful public holiday crowd started celebrating in the stands.
The home side then got another superb knock from the inform Lendl Simmons, who made his fourth half-century in the series to take home the Man-of-the-Match award.
After the match, skipper Darren Sammy was understandably delighted.
“Great way to end the series, we asked for a win and we got one here today. The crowd was superb and they gave us the positive vibe from the start. I want to thank the fans for coming out and showing us so much love. We fed off that and went out and delivered in style,” said Sammy, who grabbed 3-30 from 10 overs.
“The bowlers did another fantastic job for us. They pegged back the Pakistanis and our fielding was also tops.”
It was then left to the batsmen and Simmons (77 not out) and Kirk Edwards (40 not out) both peppered the boundaries as they recorded career-best scores.
“Simmons has been great all throughout and again today he demonstrated his ability with the bat. His shot-selection was superb, and he formed a very good partnership with Kirk, who also played well. It is good to see we are getting performances like these. The players are growing and the self-belief is there.
“We now look ahead to the Test matches with confidence. Some new players will be coming in to join the set-up and we know we will maintain the same momentum we had during the ODIs.”
