Misbah and Yasir storm into record books with historic win against Windies

KARACHI: Pakistan’s retiring captain Misbah ul Haq was given a fairytale farewell with a historic win in the West Indies on Sunday. He became the first ever Pakistani captain to win a Test series in the Caribbean, with no other captain from Pakistan having done so in the last seven tours to the West Indies.

Misbah is also the first, and only, Asian captain to win three Test matches in West Indies. He won one Test in 2011 series and two Tests in 2017 series. Virat Kohli won two Tests when India toured West Indies last year. No other Asian captain could win more than one Test on West Indian soil.

This was also Misbah’s 11th series win, the most by an Asian captain, Indian duo of Saurav Ganguly and MS Dhoni has won 9 series each. The win in Dominica Test was Misbah’s 26th win as captain, already the most by any Pakistani captain in history, over a dozen more than Imran and Miandad.

He is only the fourth Pakistani captain to win his last Test, other three were AH Kardar, Imran Khan and Rashid Latif.

Spinner Yasir Shah bagged 25 wickets in the three-match series against West Indies, which is the most by any bowler in a three-match series to be played in West Indies. He surpassed Imran Khan, who had taken 23 wickets in 1988.

It is also the most by any spinner against West Indies on any ground, and second most by any bowler in a three-match series against the West Indies.

25 wickets in a series is also the best by any Pakistani spinner in any away series, also jointly the best with Imran Khan (25 in five tests against West Indies in 1977) and Wasim Akram (25 in three Tests in New Zealand).

Young pacer Mohammad Abbas, who was playing his first Test series, got 15 wickets in the series which made him the first Pakistani fast bowler since 2010 to take 15 wickets in a series, last was Mohammad Aamir who took 19 wickets in four tests against England in summer of 2010.

Pakistan won the match with only six balls remaining in the day after defiance batting by Chase, making it one of the narrowest wins of Pakistan in the history of Tests (in terms of time remaining in the game).

The three-match series also saw the end of Younis Khan’s international career, who ended his career with 10,099 runs. The most by any Pakistan player in the history of Test cricket.