SPEED KILLS

Nottingham

A blistering Oshane Thomas-led pace attack swept Pakistan away for a dismal 105 as West Indies wrapped up a seven-wicket victory in their World Cup opener at Trent Bridge. Chris Gayle, set to retire at the end of the tournament, then led the West Indies reply with 50 off 34 balls as the two-times champions reached 108/3 off just 13.4 overs.

Having won the toss and elected to field, West Indies made full use of overcast conditions as Thomas took four wickets for 27 runs, while captain Jason Holder (3/42) and the returning Andre Russell (2/4) completed the demolition job. Pakistan’s batsmen have struggled with short deliveries and West Indies’ plan to pepper them with bouncers soon paid off. Opener Imam-ul-Haq was caught behind down the leg side off fast bowler Sheldon Cottrel before Russell hit Fakhar Zaman on the helmet and the ball ricocheted onto the stumps. Wicketkeeper Shai Hope grabbed two more catches when Russell and Holder removed Haris Sohail and captain Sarfaraz Ahmed to leave Pakistan on 75/5. Wahab Riaz struck 18 off 11 balls to help Pakistan breach the 100-run mark before he was cleaned up by Thomas. The only concern for the West Indies were Russell limping with a knee issue in the first innings, while Gayle appeared to have sustained a back injury. After smashing two fours and a six in the 10th over, Gayle appeared to hold his back and limp to the other end for a single. He looked increasingly edgy before holing out to point for Mohammad Amir’s third wicket of the match.

The in-form Zaman and Babar Azam got off to solid starts but were both dismissed for 22, exposing the middle order against the new ball and Pakistan never recovered. — Agencies

Numbers game21.4 Overs played by Pakistan, their shortest completed innings out of the 72 innings they’ve played in the World Cup since 1975. Their previous worst for a completed innings was 31 overs for 134 runs against England at Cape Town in 2003

213 Was the match aggregate today, the lowest for a World Cup match involving Pakistan. Overall, the lowest match aggregate in the World Cup is 73 by Canada (36 all out) vs Sri Lanka (37/1) at Paarl in the 2003 World Cup

105 Is Pakistan’s second-lowest in World Cups, the lowest being 74 against England in 1992

218 Balls was the margin of defeat for Pakistan, their biggest in World Cup in terms of balls remaining. Overall in ODIs, they have suffered only one bigger defeat, also against West Indies, in Cape Town in 1993

7 Wickets lost by Pakistan batsmen to short or short-of-a-good length balls. They scored 55 runs off 68 such balls. Of the 130 balls bowled by the WI bowlers, 68 were short, which is 52% of the total balls delivered