Pak vs WI: Pakistan team creates Test record; Shaheen Afridi adds another feather to his cap

• The second Test win has made Pakistan the only team that won two Test matches with an extremely poor start.
• The Test versus West Indies marks the 10th instance when a team lost three wickets with only 2 or fewer runs on the scoreboard in its first innings of a Test match.
• Shaheen Afridi equals Wasim Akram's record of 10-wicket haul in West Indies. 

KARACHI: Pakistan achieved a unique feat on Wednesday with a 109 runs victory against West Indies in Kingston and became the only team to win two Test matches after losing three wickets for 2 or fewer runs in the first innings of the Test.

Pakistan was 2/3 in less than 4 overs to start the 2nd Test before Fawad Alam scored a century and Babar Azam played a captain’s knock of 75 to help Pakistan recover and post 302/9 and declare the innings.

This was only the 10th instance when a team lost three wickets with only 2 or fewer runs on the scoreboard in its first innings of a Test match.

Only twice teams have won a Test match jumping from such a poor start – and on both occasions, it was Pakistan’s side.

The previous occasion of winning a Test after being three wickets down for 2 or fewer runs was when Pakistan defeated India in Karachi Test in 2006. The home side was 0/3 after Irfan Pathan took a hat-trick in the first over, but they ended the test with 341 runs victory.

The other team to lose three wickets for the fewest runs in 1st innings of the Test and ending the game as a victorious side was England when it fought back from 4/3 to beat New Zealand at Napier in 2008.

Shaheen Afridi enters record book

Pakistan’s victory in Jamaica can be credited to Shaheen Shah Afridi, along with Fawad Alam. Shaheen took 10/94 against West Indies. He is the first Pakistani fast bowler since May 2000 to claim a 10-wicket match figure in West Indies. The last Pakistani fast bowler to do so was Wasim Akram when he took 11/110 at St. John’s.

At age of 21 years and 136 days, Shaheen Shah Afridi was also the third youngest Pakistani fast bowler to take a 10-wicket match figure after Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Muhammad Zahid.

The 21-year-old left-arm fast bowler took 18 wickets in the two-match series which is most by a Pakistani fast bowler in a series comprising of two Tests. Previously, Mohammad Abbas vs Australia in 2018 and Mohammad Asif vs Sri Lanka in 2006 had 17 wickets in series, apiece.

Pakistan’s spinner Saqlain Mushtaq took 20 wickets against India in 1999 while Mushtaq Ahmed took 18 wickets in two-match series twice. This makes Shaheen Shah Afridi to a jointly-second place of Pakistani bowlers (of any style) to take most numbers of wickets in a two-match series.