Although winning and losing are part of the game, the West Indies team’s defeat is not just a part of the game. It becomes part of the team’s ferment, and the series of defeats continues to grow like a landslide.
Prior to this series, the West Indies had lost five consecutive T20 matches to Australia, and the margins by which those results came in Australia’s favor were tantamount to shaming Caribbean cricket.
The series against Pakistan was an opportunity to restore the confidence that the West Indies had lost for almost two years. This Pakistani XI was also an easy opponent compared to Australia, which itself was fresh from losing the series to Bangladesh.
But Pakistani inexperience could not do much good to Caribbean cricket and the difference was only in the margins. Otherwise, the results of the two matches were no different for them from the previous series, and the previous series was no different from their previous two years.
Although Pakistan showed their mettle with spin in the first match, the defeat in the second match seemed to cast a shadow on the planning for the third match. Even though the final match and series were won by Pakistan, the partnership of Sahibzada Farhan and Saim Ayub here was not much different from that of Babar and Rizwan.