Jomel Warrican Claims Six-Wicket Haul Against Pakistan After 46 Overs of Hard Work

West Indian spinner, Jomel Warrican has termed his efforts of six for 112 in the ongoing second test match of the series at Port of Spain against Pakistan as extremely special, mainly because of the workload he took on himself and the rewards he got. With the West India skipper and the other spinner in the team, Roston Chase picking an injury to his index finger of his bowling hand, he could bowl only seven overs. Whereas, Warrican bowled for the bulk of the overs for West India. To be precise he bowled 46 out of 115 overs that Pakistan faced in their first innings.

Pakistan started their innings on day three at a score of 266 for three, trailing the first score of West Indies by 78 runs. However, they lost 8 wickets for 106 runs, with Warrican leading the way for the Caribbean team and restricted their deficit to just 43 runs.

Speaking about this performance, Warrican said, “I think that’s probably the performance I will cherish the most, because the team was down, and the skipper was struggling with his finger, and I had to take up the mantle of working hard and bowling all those extra overs to help out the team. In terms of work load and to get rewarded for bowling so many overs, it felt extremely special.”

This was Warrican’s third five-wicket haul in tests overall and his first in the home soil. “I always wanted a five-for at home,” he said at the end of the day’s play. That’s something that I will cherish, because watching the highlights when it's showing old clips, it’s always home series, and I always wanted to be in the dressing room watching an old clip of me getting a five-for, and it happened in this game, so I am really happy about that.” He added.

After making a strong comeback in the match, West India found themselves struggling and being on the back foot once more in the series when their second innings began. Pakistan spinner Sajid Khan took four wickets in quick succession and reduced them to 103 for 6 with a lead of only 60 runs at stumps on day 3.

As a team we have got to get close to 150-175 to be comfortable and have a game, Warrrican said. So we have got to have a plan and how we are going to get it, and execute it when we get to bat tomorrow. Knowing how batting can be challenging in the fourth innings, Sajid Khan said Pakistan would need to close the West Indian innings as early as possible.

“Tomorrow is the fourth day, and you know how the wicket will play. So, we will try to bowl them out as soon as possible.” said Sajid. He further quipped, “the smaller the target, the better it is for our batters. We will try our best to get the remaining wickets at most 60-70 runs.”

Speaking of the pitch, Saji said, the wicket is not treacherous yet and that a batter who takes their time would score runs on it. He took the example of Justin Greaves and Roston Chase both of whom scored half-centuries in their first innings and of Babar Azam and Abdullah Shafique, who scored 160 and 88 respectively in Pakistan’s first innings. Sajid himself contributed a crucial 30 runs with the bat for Pakistan.