00:00The West Indies are hoping to redeem themselves after being thrashed by Australia in the five-match T20 series in the Caribbean.
00:07They take on the Mercurial Pakistanis, who are also coming off a 2-1 loss to hosts Bangladesh.
00:13Cricket analyst Fazir Mohamed expects the men in Maroon to perform a lot better,
00:17with the recent matches against the Aussies preparing them well for the clashes ahead.
00:20So the West Indies should actually be a lot more competitive against the Pakistanis
00:26because of that experience of taking on the Australians.
00:29And yes, they would hopefully have learned a lot of lessons from that experience,
00:33especially defending totals because in every single case,
00:37the Australians chased down the targets that were set for them, a couple of them quite challenging.
00:42And in the end, the West Indies would have learned from that experience,
00:46or at least one would hope that the West Indies would learn from that experience quickly enough
00:50to ensure that they could bring that to bear in the three-match series against Pakistan.
00:55Even though the West Indies went past 202 occasions against Australia,
01:00the bowlers were unable to defend it.
01:02But Mohamed says there's a huge difference between Australia and Pakistan in terms of quality.
01:07Certainly for the bowlers, it will be a different sort of challenge
01:10because for Australia, quite clearly looking ahead towards the 2026 World T20 tournament,
01:16they're testing the strength and depth of their batting line-up.
01:21And indeed, it showed that they are a very formidable unit.
01:24Pakistan, notoriously less so.
01:27They don't have that level of depth.
01:29They have tremendous talent, but again, very inconsistent.
01:32And we'll have to wait and see how the West Indies bowlers respond to that challenge.
01:36But in the shape of Pakistan,
01:38one would expect to see the West Indies bowlers be far more competitive,
01:42far more effective in limiting the scoring opportunities,
01:46having just gone through that searching examination against the Australians.
01:51The Pakistanis have had the better of the exchanges against the West Indies and T20 internationals,
01:56winning six bilateral series against the Caribbean men.
01:59On the other hand, the Windies had a 1-0 win in a one-off T20 in 2011 in St. Lucia.
02:05But Mohamed feels the home side can come out on top against the Asians this time around.
02:10Predicting how a series is going to go,
02:12just three matches between the West Indies and Pakistan,
02:15is always going to be difficult.
02:17But it might actually have worked to the benefit of the West Indies
02:21to have gone through those five matches against Australia
02:24and should toughen them up for the encounters against Pakistan.
02:28For that reason, I give the West Indies a good chance of taking the series
02:31by two matches to one, given what they would have experienced,
02:35what they would have learned,
02:36and hopefully what they could bring to bear against Pakistan.
02:39Following the T20 matches,
02:41the teams then meet in three ODIs in Teruba on August 8th, 10th, and 12th.
02:47Vinod Nawani, TV6 Sport.
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