West Indies v Pakistan: Cricket World Cup 2019 – live!

More interval reading, which has in no way posted here solely because I wrote a third of it

Thanks Simon, hello everyone. That was a serious statement of intent from Pakistan, whose four victories in global tournaments have all come after effigy-inspiring defeats in the opening game. But seriously folks – because sometimes the banter has to stop – West Indies are genuine contenders to win the World Cup for the first time since 1996, and the world is thus a better place.

And with that I’m going to hand over to Rob, who will cover the anticipated Gayle-related carnage. Everybody knew that the West Indies boast a fine batting line-up, but their bowlers have just made a hell of a statement. All emails to him here, please. I leave you with a bit of interval-shaped reading. Bye!

“God, thanks for this, the Windies bringing it makes me absolutely euphoric,” writes Robert Wilson. “It doesn’t just make me feel young again, it makes the sun shine and the birds sing. It brings back mass literacy and political hope. It reorients the poles and the Van Allen Belt. Old people’s homes are in tumult today, as crumbling grandfathers dance insanely around the car park in their Viv Richards pyjamas. Holder is quite simply the best captain in world Cricket. And a total mensch to boot.”

21.4 overs: Pakistan 105 all out In other interesting news from that two-thirds-of-an-over, Thomas gave away another no-ball, which wasn’t actually a no-ball at all but at that stage Pakistan really needed some freebies. Mohammad Amir only gets a single from the free hit. Russell stoops to pick up the ball, and somehow manages to injure himself doing so. As the innings comes to an end, the bowler whose two early wickets set Pakistan on the road to ruin is off the pitch receiving treatment to a jarred knee.

And that wraps it up! Wahab Riaz shuffles backwards to give himself some room to clout the ball, doesn’t clout the ball, and is cleaned out!

21st over: Pakistan 103-9 (Wahab 18, Amir 2) Six! Six runs! Holder bowls short to Wahab and he nails this one, hoisting it over midwicket! And then four over cover, followed by another massive six over square leg! Pakistan finally reach triple figures, and in quite some style!

20th over: Pakistan 86-9 (Wahab 2, Amir 1) Thomas bowls the noest of no balls, overstepping by a massive margin, but the free hit, a slower short ball, goes unhit. “This is a bit of a sorry shambles,” says Guy Hornsby. “I do have a real soft spot for Pakistan, but you have to wonder how damaging the series against us was for their confidence. Their bowlers are quality, but they’ll have nothing to defend if they give it away like this.”

Another short ball, another wicket! Hafeez gets his body out of the way but forgets about his bat, and accidentally lifts the ball to deep fine leg!

And another one! Short of a length again, and it’s top-edged straight to mid off!

18th over: Pakistan 80-7 (Hafeez 14, Hasan 1) This is carnage. Thomas bowls into Hasan Ali’s body, and he desperately fends it into the air. Short leg would have had the easiest of catches, had he existed.

A rare full delivery and Shadab is caught by surprise, gets nothing on it and is totally plum!

17th over: Pakistan 77-6 (Hafeez 12, Shadab 0) Two runs and two wickets from the over as West Indies’ diet of bounce continues to pay dividends.

Another short ball, another wicket! This loops into the air off Imad’s glove as the batsman mistimes a pull, and Gayle runs backwards and to his right to take a simple catch!

… And they were right to do so! There was certainly a little tickle, off either the top of the bat or a glove, and another one’s gone!

The umpire didn’t think he got anything on it, but the fielding team disagrees …

16th over: Pakistan 75-4 (Sarfaraz 11, Hafeez 8) Wild cheers as Thomas bowls a bouncer that could Hafeez could only have reached had he been standing on Sarfaraz’s shoulders and the umpire signals a wide. After that he reins it in a bit, and the last is an overpitched yorker-cum-full-toss that the batsman hits straight to a fielder.

15th over: Pakistan 72-4 (Sarfaraz 9, Hafeez 8) The crowd has started to boo every time a batsman is forced to duck away from a bouncer, and even more so when the bouncers are so bouncy they don’t even have to duck. The umpires seem unbothered, however. At the over’s end, the players pause for drinks.

14th over: Pakistan 70-4 (Sarfaraz 7, Hafeez 8) Pakistan’s batting has been, as Mickey Arthur might say, extremely charismatic this morning, and they find themselves excavating a fairly deep hole. Mohammad Hafeez seems unbothered: he strolls in and after a single dot ball he dismisses a short, wide delivery for four, and clips the next off his ankles and through midwicket for four more.

Thomas bowls vaguely shortish, and really quite wide-ish. Babar goes after it, and feathers an edge that Shai Hope takes in superlative, acrobatic style, diving full-length, high to his right!

13th over: Pakistan 62-3 (Babar 22, Sarfaraz 7) Brathwaite continues. Three dots, three singles.

12th over: Pakistan 58-3 (Babar 20, Sarfaraz 5) More pace but a new face for West Indies, Oshane Thomas doing some bowling. He pitches one short but Babar’s onto this one, pulling it through midwicket for four. Russell’s spell thus lasted three overs, cost four runs and brought two wickets.

11th over: Pakistan 50-3 (Babar 13, Sarfaraz 4) Dropped! Brathwaite bowls, Babar pushes it straight to Hetmyer at backward point, and the ball goes down! There’s an excellent slow-motion replay that shows Hetmyer setting himself as if the ball was coming straight to him, and then at the final moment having to fling his hands a foot to the left. Sarfaraz then gets off the mark, tickling the final ball fine for four.

10th over: Pakistan 45-3 (Babar 12, Sarfaraz 0) Pakistan are in a spot of bother here. After all those short balls Russell welcomes Sarfaraz with a yorker, which he just about deals with. Excellent, hostile bowling. 400 is looking a long way away at the moment.

Another short ball, another wicket for Andre Russell! It’s just too fast for Haris, who waves his bat at it and gets a faint top edge that sends the ball looping to the keeper!

9th over: Pakistan 45-2 (Babar 12, Haris 8) Carlos Brathwaite enters the fray, and keeps the pacey pressure on.

8th over: Pakistan 42-2 (Babar 12, Haris 5) Russell continues, and continues to serve up a diet of short balls: he has bowled 12 of them so far, and nothing else. The batsmen concentrate on getting out of the way.

7th over: Pakistan 40-2 (Babar 11, Haris 4) The West Indies pacemen have the wind in their sails now, and Cottrell slams in an opening delivery that rises into Babar’s belly. It’s a fine over, at least until the final delivery, which Haris Sohail clips, without much control, over point for four.

6th over: Pakistan 35-2 (Babar 10, Haris 0) After a couple of singles Fakhar leans back to work the ball to third man for a single, then Babar leans back to work the ball to third man too. And then the wicket. Fakhar had looked in fine nick, and though the delivery was fine and fast that is a infuriating way to go.

Fakhar tries to pull a bouncer but is too slow, and the ball hits the handle of his bat, rebounds into his helmet, dribbles off his shoulder and flops onto the stumps!

5th over: Pakistan 33-1 (Fakhar 21, Babar 9) Cottrell’s wide full toss is hammered to the rope by Babar, a filthy start to the over. It improves from there.

4th over: Pakistan 27-1 (Fakhar 21, Babar 3) West Indies set a very one-sided field, forcing Holder (well, as captain he forces himself) to bowl wide of off stump to the left-handed Fakhar. Fakhar enjoys this predictability, slaps one past point for four and then pushes through the covers for three. Babar Azam gets off the mark with three of his own off the last, flicked off his pads and through midwicket.

3rd over: Pakistan 17-1 (Fakhar 14) A word for the crowd, who seem in a mood of wild anticipation, with wild noise exploding from the stands whenever bat meets ball like popcorn from a lidless pan. Fakhar gets them popping with a lofted drive over extra cover for four, before Cottrell gets the wicket, and gets saluting, from his final delivery.

A shortish ball is on its way just down the leg side but Imam tries to pull and gloves it through to the keeper!

2nd over: Pakistan 11-0 (Imam-ul-Haq 1, Fakhar 9) Fakhar Zaman drives Jason Holder’s first delivery down the ground for three, and after an Imam single Fakhar lifts the ball over square leg to the shortest boundary in the ground for six! A sweet shot that, lovely timing.

1st over: Pakistan 1-0 (Imam-ul-Haq 0, Zaman 0) Sheldon Cottrell gets the game started … with a rank, wild wide! From there he gets closer and closer to the wicket, ending with a lovely yorker that would have taken out middle stump. Before then he got a couple to whistle past the bat, with one confusingly loud appeal for caught behind, even though the ball missed the bat by at least six inches.

Anthems sung, giant-cricket-balls-on-sticks removed from the pitch, it’s time for action!

The squads are out ahead of the anthems. There are so many mascots that Shaheen Afridi has to have two.

“West Indies and Pakistan would have been the B-sides to the tournament favourites if they were discs (West Indies goes gung-ho like England; Pakistan is pragmatic like India),” suggests Abhijato Sensarma. “Unlike the favourites, however, their bowling is mediocre most of the time.Yesterday, we saw the ‘Catch Of The Tournament’. Today on this pitch which is made for strokeplay and punishment of mediocre bowling, we might see the ‘Highest Aggregate Score of the Tournament’ as well!”

Kemar Roach and Shannon Gabriel are the big names left out of the West Indies side. Gabriel has only played four ODIs in the last 12 months, all in Dublin this month, so his absence is not a massive shock.

“Instead of unpredictable I’d prefer to use the word charismatic, because I think that sums us up,” says the Pakistan coach, Mickey Arthur, of his side. Sure, we can go with that. Their performances have certainly been a bit, er, charismatic of late. Let’s see what today holds.

The teams, then:

Pakistan: Imam-ul-Haq, Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam, Haris Sohail, Mohammad Hafeez, Sarfaraz Ahmed (wk/c), Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Hasan Ali, Wahab Riaz, Mohammad Amir.
West Indies: Chris Gayle, Shai Hope, Darren Bravo, Shimron Hetmyer, Nicholas Pooran (wk), Andre Russell, Jason Holder (c), Carlos Brathwaite, Ashley Nurse, Sheldon Cottrell, Oshane Thomas.

Sarfaraz Ahmed says he too would have chosen to bowl first, but thinks it’s a good batting pitch so chin up.

“I don’t think the conditions will change much as the day goes on,” says Jason Holder, who thinks there might be a little bit of early movement, hence his decision.

Day two, and the carnival moves to Nottingham, home of the high score: of the top five ODI totals made in England, three were made at Trent Bridge. It is England’s self-styled capital of ball-thwacking, the place where Pakistan made their (runs finger down list, counting) 16th-highest ODI total just a couple of weeks back (while still losing) and will also play their next World Cup game, against England on Monday. This is what the former England spinner Gareth Batty had to say about Trent Bridge in his excellent guide to the World Cup venues:

The changing rooms are relatively small but somehow, because of the history of the ground, you can put logistics to the back of your mind. The dimensions have changed drastically with the new stands, so you can get some very small pockets to target – generally over extra cover or backward square-leg, on the left‑hand side when you are looking out from the pavilion. Bowlers have to be smart to defend those areas. As for the surface, you can forget about it zipping around – they generally make it as flat as your hat. Nottinghamshire as a club pride themselves on being a high-scoring domestic team, and Trent Bridge is probably the highest-scoring ground in the country.

One imagines that Chris Gayle (who has averaged 80.85 in seven innings over the last year, at a strike rate of 117.91), Shai Hope, Shimron Hetmyer and the rest of the West Indies team will be very excited about this, as should anyone who enjoys watching a team turn on the run tap and try to flood the kitchen. “We have to try and win this tournament with the bat, meaning scoring close to 400 runs every game,” says Andre Russell. Well, if you must. Pakistan meanwhile showed what they could do in the recent ODI series against England: play reasonably well, and then lose anyway. They have lost 12 of the 14 ODIs they have played this year, against South Africa, Australia and England, and all of the last 10. This is an opportunity for them to redefine themselves as winners, and the most opportune time, and they will be determined to grasp it.

In short: should be fun, yes?

Weather update

Here is a photograph from Nottingham this morning:

I see skies of blue and clouds of white. There is, a forecaster tells me, a 1% chance of precipitation. What a wonderful world.