West Indies fast bowler Jayden Seales bagged three early wickets. However, half-centuries from Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan helped to rebuild Pakistan’s innings on the opening day of the first Test at the Multan Cricket Stadium in Pakistan.
Seales’ brilliant opening spell helped reduce the home side to 46 for four until Shakeel, who ended the day unbeaten on 56 and Rizwan on 51 not out, shared an unbroken 97-run partnership for the fifth wicket, taking Pakistan to 143 for four when bad light ended play early.
Pakistan won the toss and chose to bat, with left-arm spinner Gudakesh Motie opening the bowling for the West Indies in the first innings of a Test match.
Seales did not take long to make the breakthrough, with Muhammad Hurraira edging a ball just outside off stump behind to wicketkeeper Tevin Imlach with 16 runs on the board.
Four runs later, captain Shan Masood was snapped up by Imlach with a delivery from Motie.
Kamran Ghulam arrived at the crease and smacked Seales for four, but he was adjudged lbw on the next ball, leaving Pakistan in trouble at 31 for three.
Imlach caught Star batsman Babar Azam behind off a delivery from Seales, and the home team fell to 46 for four.
Shakeel and Rizwan then took Pakistan to tea at 86 for four, with Shakeel at 33 and Rizwan at 18.
After the break, Shakeel eventually brought up his ninth Test half-century off 86 balls with a delivery from Sinclair.
Rizwan followed soon after, driving a delivery from Warrican to bring up his 10th Test half-century off 76 balls.
With the quality of light decreasing, Brathwaite opted to bowl but only got through three deliveries when umpires called off play because of insufficient light.
Heading into the second day, West Indies collapsed to 137 within one session against Pakistan spinners Noman Ali and Sajid Khan as 19 wickets fell on Day 2 of the first Test.
Pakistan bowled out for 230 in the first innings, stretched their lead to 202, and reached 109-3 with spinners claiming 17 of the 19 wickets to fall in a day.
Captain Shan Masood, on 52, captured his 11th Test half-century off 60 balls before he got run out with Kamran Ghulam not out on 9.
Ali grabbed 5-39, and Khan frustrated the top four batters with 4-65 in the middle session.
Captain Kraigg Brathwaite (11) was the only one among the top seven batters to reach the double figures before West Indies’ innings folded in 25.2 overs.
West Indies were in chaos at 91-9, but a partnership of 46 runs off 21 balls between Jomel Warrican (31 not out) and Jayden Seales (22) took the visitors beyond the 100-run mark.
West Indies spinners also profited from favorable conditions to bowl out Pakistan just before lunch after the home team resumed on 143-4.
Spinner Warrican picked up 3-69, and Kevin Sinclair (2-61) accounted for the wickets of Saud Shakeel (84) and Mohammad Rizwan (71) as Pakistan lost the last six wickets for 43 runs.
Shakeel and Rizwan had extended their fifth-wicket stand to 141 before Pakistan lost wickets in a cluster in the latter half of the first session.
Khan (18) and Khurram Shahzad (7) shared the second-best partnership of the innings when they contributed 25 runs for the ninth-wicket stand before Warrican wrapped up the innings just before lunch by removing both batters in his successive overs.
