Babar and Fakhar lead Pakistan to 3-0

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Pakistan swept their way to a three-nil series whitewash over West Indies with another comfortable victory in the T20I in Karachi.

With the hosts chasing a modest 153 for victory, a dashing 61-run opening stand set the tone for an emphatic reply. Fakhar Zaman, in particular, looked in menacing mood, smashing 40 from just 17 balls with six fours and two sixes to have Pakistan rattling along at 10 an over from the off.

Fakhar's partner Babar Azam also struck six boundaries in an accomplished 40-ball 51, putting on 51 alongside No.3 Hussain Talat.

By the time Babar was out, caught off the bowling of Odean Smith, the die was cast. Talat (31 off 28) and Asif Ali (25 off 16) put on a 41-run stand to knock off the necessaries with more than three overs to spare. Rayad Emrit, who took 1/24 off his four overs, was perhaps the pick of the bowlers for the Windies in a losing cause.

Earlier, Andre Fletcher made a boundary-studded 43-ball 52 to give the Windies the recovery they needed when, after winning the toss, they lost other the opener Chadwick Walton to Mohammad Nawaz for a nine-ball duck.

Fletcher and Marlon Samuels (31) put on 72 before a middle-order collapse stunted the tourists’ progress. Just as Pakistan had handed a debut to promising 17-year-old left-arm seamer Shaheen Afridi (0/27), so the Windies also had a rookie in their line-up. Thirty-year-old Jamaican Andre McCarthy made just 5 in a flurry of wickets that saw him, Fletcher (run out by Nawaz) and Rovman Powell (2) fall for the addition of just six runs.

West Indies’ blushes were saved by the late exploits of Denesh Ramdin, who smashed 42 off 18 balls with four fours and three sixes, as he and skipper Jason Mohammed (13) got the score up to 153 from the 20 overs. But it never looked like being enough.