ISLAMABAD: West Indies coach Stuart Law believes Pakistani leg-spinner Shadab Khan bowled very well in the two Twenty20 matches but also thinks that his batsmen gifted him a few wickets as well.
Shadab has taken to international cricket in style. The 18- year old leg-spinner’s statistics after only two matches for Pakistan read seven wickets at an average of 3, a strike-rate of 6.8 and an economy rate of 2.6.
Stuart Law thought his batsmen “gifted” some wickets away to Shadab and the best way to combat him was to be “more ruthless.”
“We have plans for everyone. We just need to come up with better execution when we are out in the middle and that is what it boils down to,” espncricinfo.com quoted Law as saying.
“Shadab has bowled very well, but I think we have gifted him a few wickets as well. I think we just need to be a little bit more ruthless against him and see what transpires after that,” he said.
Law, while admitting the need to “start playing better cricket,” cautioned against taking reactionary decisions. “Our bowling has been excellent over the last couple of games, our catching has been outstanding, few mistakes in the ground fielding but our batting is where we need to really have a look,” he said.
Shadab has played a starring role in Pakistan’s victories in the Caribbean so far that on each night he was named Man of the Match.
Pakistani all-rounder Shoaib Malik also came all praise for Shadab saying “I must appreciate and praise Shadab for the way he has been conducting himself, and taking wickets. If you are playing against West Indies, you have to keep taking wickets. They hit boundaries and I think this is what we have been doing.”
Malik said if you look at our fielding, that is where we have always lacked but the way the guys are putting in an effort here, I think that is a great sign for Pakistan cricket.
“Our physical fitness, you could see even in the field, the guys roaming around, moving fast. But we need to improve our first six overs in the batting. I think we’re going to sit and talk about it and we will come up with something,” he said.
As a result, West Indies have gone 0-2 down in a four-match T20 series and have to win Saturday’s match to stay alive.
