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ScorecardBen Slater managed another big Derbyshire total [file picture]•Getty Images

The international experience of Jeevan Mendis took Derbyshire to a four wicket victory that knocked holders Warwickshire out of the Royal London One-Day Cup.The Sri Lankan all-rounder hit six fours and a six in an unbeaten 44 off 23 balls to steer Derbyshire home with two balls to spare to keep alive their hopes of finishing in the top three of the North Group.The visitors’ 292 for 7 was built on Sam Hain’s highest one-day score of 109 and Ian Bell’s 93 but Ben Slater set Derbyshire up with 82 before Mendis carried the home side to 296 for 6.Four times in less than a fortnight Derbyshire have recorded scores that all rank in the top 20 they have ever made in one-day cricket.Warwickshire first team coach Jim Troughton admitted: “We knew we wanted 20 extra runs which would have given us a cushion for a little cameo there from Mendis who played exceptionally well. When you lose by a small margin it’s a tough one for the guys to take.”His side would have expected to go past 300 when Hain and Bell accumulated steadily after Jonathan Trott had played on to Ben Cotton in the eighth over.Although only 43 came from the opening Powerplay, conditions were good for batting under a cloudless sky and runs came more freely as Hain and Bell relied on placement rather than power.Hain’s second 50 came from only 38 balls but when he gave himself room to drive Thakor through the covers, he lost his middle stump which ended Warwickshire’s highest stand for any wicket against Derbyshire in one-day cricket.Bell’s run out four overs later, going for a second on a misfield, meant Warwickshire had two new batsmen in and the innings stalled against tight bowling backed up by sharp fielding.Rikki Clarke went cheaply against the club he used to captain and, although Tim Ambrose dented Ben Cotton’s figures by pulling him for two consecutive sixes, he was lbw hitting across the line at Thakor.When Hardus Viljoen conceded only four off the bat in the final over, Warwickshire had been restricted to 44 from the last seven although Derbyshire still needed to make their highest one-day score against them to win.They were given a solid start by Slater and Billy Godleman who made 46 before he was sent back and run out for 46 in the 18th over as the spinners checked the home side’s progress.Clarke profited when he returned to have Thakor caught at deep mid on for 20 and although Slater pulled Ateeq Javid for six, he was bowled attempting the same shot at Patel two overs later.When Wayne Madsen was lbw to Keith Barker, Derbyshire needed 120 from the last 15 overs but Daryn Smit pulled Mark Adair for four and six to reduce the target to 84 from 10.Alex Hughes helped add 62 in nine overs before Mendis took over, clubbing Clarke for six before he sealed victory with a drive down the ground off Barker.Mendis said: “I wanted to play a good innings for Derbyshire but this was a team effort. The senior players have done well and it gives the younger players a boost to help them in the future.”Every time I go out to bat I get nervous and batting at No 7 is hard because you get few balls to play yourself in so you get little time to get going.”

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details4:05

Isam: Bangladesh’s chance to bury second-innings problems

The Test is tantalisingly poised. Sri Lanka, holders of a proud home record, stretched their lead to 139 thanks to two centuries: of runs from Dimuth Karunaratne and of balls by the No. 8 Dilruwan Perera. But Bangladesh, playing in a landmark game of their own, can consider themselves in control of their 100th Test after picking up eight wickets on the fourth day.The day ended on a strange note for Bangladesh after umpire Aleem Dar seemed to nod in the affirmative to an appeal, as if to suggest Suranga Lakmal had got a faint inside edge to short leg off the last ball bowled by Mosaddek Hossain. Replays, however, didn’t indicate an edge but it was another example of how tough this Test has been for the umpires.That Bangladesh made inroads through the day was because the attack was led astutely by Shakib Al Hasan, who took three wickets, including that of Karunaratne in the final session for 126. Having removed Asela Gunaratne and Niroshan Dickwella earlier, Shakib finished with 3 for 61 after 30 overs of accurate left-arm spin.Yet the man instrumental for breaking Sri Lanka’s back was Mustafizur Rahman, after the hosts looked steady the first session despite losing Upul Tharanga in the day’s second over to Mehedi Hasan. Karunaratne and Kusal Mendis had weathered the early burst and added 86, large parts of it being accrued before lunch.Mendis, who made 36, was given an early reprieve on 12 when Imrul Kayes couldn’t hold on to a sharp chance at short leg. Then he was nearly run out on 28 after a mix-up with Karunaratne, but Sabbir Rahman’s throw from cover missed the stumps at the bowler’s end. Sri Lanka had wiped out the deficit and were ahead by 8 at lunch, looking comfortable, but that was to soon change.Mustafizur first dismissed Mendis in controversial fashion; the third umpire overturned a not-out decision though replays didn’t quite suggest a nick to the wicketkeeper. Dhananjaya de Silva and first-innings centurion Dinesh Chandimal were then out chasing wide deliveries after being starved of width for most parts of their short stays.Even as Sri Lanka collapsed in the middle session, losing five wickets for 62 runs in 26 overs, Karunaratne battled on to reach his fifth Test century. He found an ally in Perera, who fought with him during the course of 22.2 overs in which they added 27. The gallant fight ended when Shakib had Karunaratne caught at slip after an effort that spanned 244 balls and included 10 fours and a six over mid-on.Rangana Herath continued to blunt the bowling with Perera, batting for another nine overs before being trapped by Taijul Islam with a delivery that fizzed in with the angle from over the wicket. Perera remained steadfast in defence, only getting his first boundaries after he had faced 110 balls. He added 30 valuable runs with Lakmal before stumps.

Nineteen-year-old offspinner Mehedi Hasan has been called into Bangladesh’s ODI squad for the three-match series against Sri Lanka that starts on March 25. This is the first senior call-up for Mehedi in the limited-overs format. His addition means the squad now comprises 17 members, and it remains to be seen if he gets picked in the XI for the first ODI in Dambulla.Mehedi was Bangladesh’s highest wicket-taker in the Test series against Sri Lanka with 10 scalps, and has so far played seven Tests, taking 35 wickets at an average of 31.80. He had travelled back to Dhaka from Colombo with the other Test players not in the ODI squad, and will now return to Colombo today.Mehedi has 27 wickets in as many List-A matches, having last played for Kalabagan Cricket Academy in the Dhaka Premier League last year. Mehedi was initially selected in the Bangladesh U-23 squad for the upcoming ACC Emerging Nations Cup, but has now been replaced by U-19 spinner Naeem Hasan.Bangladesh ODI squad: Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Imrul Kayes, Mushfiqur Rahim, Shakib Al Hasan, Sabbir Rahman, Mahmudullah, Mosaddek Hossain, Mashrafe Mortaza, Mustafizur Rahman, Rubel Hossain, Taskin Ahmed, Subashis Roy, Sunzamul Islam, Shuvagata Hom, Nurul Hasan, Mehedi Hasan

ScorecardShai Hope’s second List A century set the tone for Barbados’ 110-run win over Leeward Islands in the second semi-final of the 2016-17 WICB Regional Super50 tournament in Antigua. Barbados will now play Jamaica in the decider on February 18, their second successive appearance in the final of the tournament.With Barbados having opted to bat first, Hope came to the crease in the 10th over with the score on 42 and anchored the side until the 46th over, taking them past 270. Along the way, he shared in half-century stands with Kraigg Brathwaite (77 for the second wicket), Roston Chase (83 for the fourth) and Jason Holder (68 for the sixth). His 125 came off 108 balls and included eight fours and five sixes. Hope’s partnership with Holder came off only 32 deliveries, and Carlos Brathwaite utilised that momentum in an 11-ball 27 that lifted the score past 300. Holder contributed an unbeaten 42 off 26 balls with two fours and three sixes, while Kraigg Brathwaite struck 54 off 84 balls.Hope’s good form on the field extended to his keeping, too, as he effected seven dismissals behind the stumps in Leeward’s chase. Leeward fell away rapidly, stumbling to 43 for 4 by the 15th over and, at one stage, their innings looked in danger of folding for less than 200. Opener Montcin Hodge batted until the 39th over, scoring 63 in the process, but had little support from the rest of the line-up. Seamer Jeremiah Louis struck an unbeaten 32-ball 41 before Leeward’s innings folded for 204 in the 48th over.Offspinner Ashley Nurse and Carlos Brathwaite took three wickets each, with Nurse conceding only 37 runs in his 10 overs.

Giving up captaincy will put MS Dhoni under pressure to keep performing in limited-overs cricket, but he will remain an “invaluable” member of India’s side if he manages to do so, Rahul Dravid has said. Speaking to ESPNcricinfo, Dravid, the former India captain and current coach of the India A and India Under-19 sides, said Dhoni’s experience and knowledge would be “priceless” to Virat Kohli, who will most likely take over the captaincy, if he continues to earn his place in the side with bat and wicketkeeping gloves.”There is no doubt that someone of MS Dhoni’s experience and ability, when playing well, is invaluable to the side,” Dravid said. “That’s the kind of experience and knowledge and ability, under pressure especially. It is not easy to find and not easy to get.”The question obviously remains that you need to earn your place in the team and you need to do it with performances. So at his best and performing really well, a guy like MS Dhoni is invaluable to India’s one-day team, especially in the big tournaments coming up. But I think that’ll also be decided by his own performances and his own ability. I think now he’ll really be judged on how he performs and can he hold his place in the side purely in terms of his wicket-keeping and batting. And that’ll be up to him.”And I guess if you’re Virat Kohli, you’ll actually be hoping that MS Dhoni does really well and is able to hold on to his place. Because you would like that kind of experience performing well in the team. Just that knowledge would be priceless for Virat Kohli to have.”Dravid felt the timing of Dhoni’s decision was “really right”, since it gave Kohli plenty of time to mould the ODI side and build towards the 2019 World Cup.”[Dhoni’s decision was] probably not that much of a surprise, in the sense that he probably knew that the time was sooner rather than later,” Dravid said. “There was talk of him continuing till the Champions Trophy with only one one-day series before that.”But I think, from his perspective, if he didn’t see himself continuing till the next World Cup, he got the timing really right because if he doesn’t see himself as a long-term prospect as captain then I think it is a good time to let Virat Kohli take over and have enough time to be able to build a one-day team to his liking for the next World Cup.”Rahul Dravid played 35 Tests, 17 ODIs and one T20I under MS Dhoni’s captaincy•Getty Images

Dravid, whose decision to resign from the captaincy in 2007 paved the way for Dhoni to take over, said it would take Dhoni some time to get used to playing under someone else, but didn’t think it would be a major issue.”I don’t think it’s very difficult,” Dravid said. “From personal experience as well, it takes a little bit of getting used to and adjusting – of not setting the field and not running things – but I think you get used to it. And Dhoni spent a lot of time as a player and not having captained before he started captaining in 2007. So I don’t think it should take him too much time to get used to it. And knowing the kind of person he is and the personality he is, I don’t see it as too much of a problem.”Dhoni’s place in India’s batting order has been a point of debate over the last year or so, with his finishing skills seemingly on the wane and a set of younger middle-order batsmen coming into the side. When asked where Dhoni should bat in limited-overs cricket, Dravid said the more pressing issue was where the less-experienced players batted.”There’s going to be a few young players around that one-day team and finding the right positions for them would be more important than Dhoni, because I think that Dhoni playing at his best can adapt to any situation.”Asked what Dhoni’s biggest contribution as captain was, Dravid pointed to the “sense of calm” he brought to the job.”Indian captaincy, there can be a lot happening around in Indian cricket – emotions can go up and down,” Dravid said. “For me, he was able to maintain a calm and a balance through all of it, which was his unique ability and his unique strength. And I think Indian cricket benefited a lot from that.”History, Dravid said, would remember Dhoni as India’s most successful captain.”What else was there for him to achieve? Most number of Test wins for India, number 1 ranking in Test cricket, T20 World Cup, Champions Trophy, the World Cup, most number of wins as one-day captain. I’m not great at stats but he must be at the top of every statistical list on what an Indian captain has achieved,” Dravid said. “History remember him as India’s most successful captain. And someone who really, in his time as an Indian captain, took the team and the game forward in this country.”

Harshal Patel’s five-wicket haul helped Haryana bowl Tripura out for 178 at the Eden Gardens. In response, Haryana, who are neck-to-neck with Andhra in the hunt for knockout qualification, were 239 ahead after posting 186 for 4 at stumps. Opener Nitin Saini hit 104.Tripura began the day on 70 for 4 and overnight batsman Smit Patel continued to lead the resistance in an innings where opener Bishal Ghosh (36) was the only other player to get into double figures. Smit batted with the lower order and scored 76 of Tripura’s 108 runs on the day as he brought up his third century of the season – and as a Tripura player – before he was the last man out. Harshal, who had already taken two wickets overnight, added three more on the day, starting with Yashpal Singh’s wicket in the ninth over.In their second innings, Haryana openers Nitin Saini and Shubham Rohilla (47) put on a 103-run partnership that came at nearly five runs per over. Saini then added 47 for the second wicket with Chaitanya Bishnoi (21), and 31 for the third with Rajat Paliwal (10*) before falling in the penultimate over of the day. His 104 came at a strike-rate of 88.88.Darshan Misal’s second first-class ton took Goa to 380 before Himachal Pradesh‘s Prashant Chopra hit an unbeaten 144 to take them to 254 for 2 at stumps in Mumbai.Goa began the day on 260 for 6, and Misal brought up his century as he put on 49 for the eighth wicket with Srinivas Fadte, after overnight batsman Shadab Jakati was out early. After Misal’s dismissal – caught and bowled to Mayank Dagar – Fadte added 46 runs for the ninth wicket with Rituraj Singh before the team folded on 380. He remained unbeaten on 38.In reply, HP looked to play aggressively and lost opener Ankush Bains in the third over with the score on 25. A 60-ball 66-run stand between Prashant and RI Thakur (26) followed, before Prashant brought up his century in 70 deliveries as he stitched together an unbroken 163-run partnership with Sumeet Verma (70*). HP’s run rate was 5.64 at the end of the day.Inclement conditions held play till after lunch in Lucknow, where Andhra‘s bowlers restricted table-toppers Hyderabad to 81 for 5 at stumps.Hyderabad began the day on 10 for no loss, having bowled out Andhra for 190 on the first day. They lost Akshath Reddy in the second over of the day, and S Badrinath shortly after. Paidikalva Vijaykumar took both those wickets, before his opening partner D Siva Kumar took two quick wickets – Tanmay Agarwal and B Sandeep – to reduce Hyderabad to 36 for 4. B Anirudh (26*) then added 45 runs with Himalay Agarwal (22), before the latter was run out in the last over the day.In Gwalior too, play started only after lunch as Chhatisgarh were bowled out for 370 against Jammu & Kashmir on the back of a 135-run partnership for the eighth wicket between Ajay Mandal and Sumit Ruikar. In response, J&K were 33 for 2 at stumps.Chhatisgarh resumed on 217 for 6 and lost overnight batsman Ashutosh Singh (41) off the first ball of the day. This brought Mandal (74) together with Ruikar (62) and the two left-arm spinners put on 135. Samiullah Beigh – who went wicketless on the day – finished the innings with 5 for 94.J&K lost opener Imran Haroon and No. 3 Pranav Gupta (22) in their response. Shubham Khajuria (9*) and Mohsin Mufti (0*) were at the crease.

Kerala coach P Balachandran has been sacked midway through the 2016-17 Ranji Trophy season after the state association felt the team’s performances had fallen short of expectations. Former India seamer and Kerala bowling coach Tinu Yohannan has been given the team’s charge, and M Rajagopal, the coach of the state’s Under-23 side, has been named assistant coach.There has also been a major overhaul in the team, with four players – senior batsman Robert Fernandez, wicket-keeper Nikhilesh Surendran, seamers U Manukrishnan and MD Nidheesh – being axed from the squad. Instead, five players from the Under-23 team – Fabid Farooq, Mohammed Azharuddeen, Salman Nizar, Akshay Chandran and KC Akshay – have been picked for Kerala’s remaining matches against Goa, Andhra, Tripura and Services.Kerala are one of two teams in Group C that have not yet registered a win after five rounds of the tournament, despite securing a first-innings lead in four of their five games. With 12 points, they are fifth in the standings and still in contention for a place in the knockouts, but the Kerala Cricket Association felt the time was apt for a change.”It isn’t [a kneejerk reaction]. For the last six or seven seasons, we are coming close but still missing out a place in the knockouts,” a KCA official told ESPNcricinfo. “We cannot spoil one more year.”According to the official, the association’s cricket development committee – which includes the chairman of the senior selection committee, K Jayaraman, and former cricketers KN Ananthapadmanabhan and Sunil Oasis – was not on the same page with Balachandran when it came to team selection. “Balachandran is a good human being, but we need results,” the official said. “When the junior teams are performing creditably, senior teams are not living up to their expectations. We want to reward good performances. That’s why we have brought in five youngsters.”Balachandran, who took over from Sairaj Bahutule as coach, said he was surprised by the decision. “I am not disappointed or upset though,” Balachandran said. “After the Haryana match, I got a message from the secretary [TN Ananthanarayanan] saying that my services were no longer required. I said ‘fine’. I did not ask for the reason.”Last year, our team did well in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the association gave good support. I don’t have any grievance, because I have done my work. The association expected more from me which I couldn’t deliver; I keep it as simple as that.”Balachandran also admitted the signing of three professionals – Iqbal Abdulla and Bhavin Thakkar from Mumbai, and Jalaj Saxena from Madhya Pradesh – at the start of the season had possibly raised KCA’s expectations of the team.The KCA official said the decision to rope in professionals indicated the association’s desperation for a better showing this season.”We wanted an aggressive approach, that’s why we brought in some guest players,” the official said. “But, if they are going to be on the losing side all the time, it will affect their morale as well.”

Fast bowler Amjad Khan has dedicated Denmark’s four-wicket win over USA on Wednesday at WCL Division Four to captain Michael Pedersen, who left Los Angeles to go back to Denmark on Tuesday night after receiving word that his mother had been involved in an accident.”It’s a win that we’d like to dedicate to Michael really because he had to go home for family reasons,” Amjad told ESPNcricinfo after the win. “It’s something that affected us all and it’s our captain that we lost so we wanted to win for him. We haven’t really lost to the US in [50-over] tournament cricket so we were quite confident going into it. But for us it was to make sure that now that Michael is home, we do right by him and we dedicate this win to him.”It was a significant bounce back win for Denmark after losing to previously winless Bermuda by 38 runs on Tuesday. A day later, they handed the tournament hosts their first loss – Denmark’s sixth straight win over USA in one-day cricket at ICC tournaments dating back to 2001 – thanks in large part to a brilliant bowling effort spearheaded by Amjad, the former England Test representative.Amjad’s ability to achieve reverse swing in his final four overs at the death resulted in 1 for 12 during that spell and overall figures of 1 for 35 in ten overs. At the other end, Aftab Ahmed bowled a magnificent final over into the wind with a 55-yard straight boundary at his back, taking 3 for 1 off the last six balls to hold USA to 261 for 9. Over the course of the final four overs, Denmark bowled 13 dot balls including the wickets while restricting USA to 17 runs, which gave them a huge lift heading into the innings break according to Amjad.”We’re pretty clear on our death plans and it’s something we work really well on,” Amjad said. “We’ve got a quartet of seamers and all of us have done a lot of death bowling. If you’re bowling at the death and you hit your areas, it doesn’t really matter how big the boundary is. I think Aftab and myself we just took the boundaries out of it and just executed our skill.”I think we hit our yorkers really well and held the pace back on the right occasions. I think that was really the background for our success there. It’s the first time we’ve been really tested at the death and it was great to see the boys executing our skills really well.”Though USA entered the final four overs at 244 for 6, they struggled to get a big partnership going throughout the day. USA’s best stand was produced by Nicholas Standford and Timroy Allen who added 77 runs for the sixth wicket. Amjad says Denmark’s ability to disrupt partnerships throughout the day to prevent momentum from building was also a significant factor in the win and it allowed them to get off to an aggressive start in their chase.”We thought they could have got 30 more,” Amjad said. “We were excellent at the death but we never felt they got away from us. We were always getting wickets. Everyone chipped in at the right times and we did feel 260 was gettable. Short boundaries and it a nicely paced wicket, it wasn’t turning a whole lot and there wasn’t much in it for the seamers. We decided that we were going to be positive, get off to a good start and then coasted home from there. Today everything went according to plan.”Denmark’s two other wins have been by fairly comfortable margins – 114 runs over Italy and six wickets against Jersey with 7.5 overs to spare – and Amjad says coming back from the loss to Bermuda was a big confidence boost that he feels will set them up for a strong performance against Oman in the final round of group play. The winner will clinch promotion to Division Three but if Denmark loses they will need a lot of mathematical help from other results to give them a chance of also being promoted on the net run rate tiebreaker.”We had a bit of a blip against Bermuda but I think the confidence has been pretty high and this victory boosts the confidence even more,” Amjad said. “I think the guys know we need to focus on our skill. The main difference today was that our pace bowlers bowled with more skill than they did. We varied our pace better and we moved the ball consistently.”I believe we’re one of the most skillful teams in this competition, especially with the ball. For me as a captain, I’ll tell everyone to relax and have a good day off but then do our skills again and I’m sure we’ll finish on top.”

In a fresh attempt to convince the BCCI, ICC general manager Geoff Allardice will travel to India next week to carry out a presentation on the Decision Review System (DRS). India are the only team to have not subscribed to the DRS after being the first to experiment with it, in 2008.The BCCI’s reluctance is well known and recent board presidents – from N Srinivasan to Shashank Manohar to Anurag Thakur now – have expressed the same reservation on the referral system: that unless technology is 100% perfect, India will not use the DRS.The ICC has consistently called for a uniform referral system to be used by all teams. In July, ICC chief executive David Richardson had revealed that its cricket committee and chief executives’ committee wanted the ICC to take “more control” of the DRS.Incidentally, the ICC cricket committee’s head is Anil Kumble, also the current India coach. Kumble and Allardice have witnessed the research carried out by a team of engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who were last year asked by the ICC to independently assess the performance of the technologies that are part of the DRS: ball tracking and edge detection. The MIT team gave a detailed presentation to the ICC cricket committee during the annual conference in June.Allardice is likely to highlight the MIT research during his presentation, which is likely to be attended by the top brass as well as key officials of the BCCI. The key point that Allardice will drive home is how the DRS and its various components have become more reliable since the system’s inception in 2008.It is understood that the ICC wanted to do this presentation earlier, but a convenient time could not be worked out. “They wanted to showcase improvements that have been made after the MIT research,” a BCCI official said. “This is something they have been wanting to share for quite some time. We need to wait and see what are the improvements exactly, considering DRS is made up of two to three elements.”India’s upcoming home Test series comprise five matches against England followed by a one-off Test against Bangladesh, before ending the season with a four-Test series against Australia. It is understood both BCCI and ECB have not worked on the MoU for the series so far and hence it is too premature, officials pointed out, to speculate whether the DRS would be used or not.The BCCI official was not sure whether senior Indian team members like MS Dhoni and Test captain Virat Kohli, along with Kumble, will attend the meeting considering they were busy with the ODI series against New Zealand.During his reign Dhoni never categorically expressed his opinion on the DRS. In contrast, Kohli has consistently said he is open to the referral system.

Match facts

October 2, Sharjah
Start time 1500 local (1100 GMT)Babar Azam is part of a young brigade that has driven Pakistan’s recent success•Getty Images

Big picture

A change of formats has not brought a change in fortune for a faltering West Indies side. Having been blanked out in the T20I series, they lost the first ODI in Sharjah by 111 runs. While West Indies continued to struggle to get enough runs on the board in spin-friendly UAE conditions, Pakistan would be cheered that many of their younger players are at the forefront of the winning momentum they are starting to build.Among those young guns is 21-year-old top-order batsman Babar Azam, who stroked his maiden international century in the first ODI. Opener Sharjeel Khan and left-arm spinners Imad Wasim and Mohammad Nawaz are other less experienced players who have shown signs that they may have bright careers ahead of them. For the time being, they are fueling Pakistan’s progress and West Indies’ demise in a tour that has so far been utterly one-sided.For West Indies, one of the main stumbling blocks has been their failure to put up competitive totals on tracks that are not conducive to their free-spirited, big-hitting game. As captain Jason Holder acknowledged, they need to rotate the strike better and show the application to build an innings.A win in the second ODI would seal the three-match series for Pakistan, but there is more riding on it than that. A 3-0 series victory for Pakistan would displace West Indies from the No. 8 position in the ODI rankings. As both teams eye direct qualification for the 2019 World Cup (for which they would need to be in the top eight on September 30, 2017) such encounters acquire added significance.

Form guide

Pakistan WWLLL (completed matches, most recent first)
West Indies LLWLL

In the spotlight

In the opening ODI, Pakistan captain Azhar Ali nicked the first ball of the match, and his first of the tour, to depart for a golden duck. Azhar, who averages 38.69 in 26 ODIs as captain, will be under mounting pressure to prove that he can juggle the responsibilities of captaincy and opening the batting. At issue is not just whether he can churn out enough runs, but whether he can do so at a strike rate in tune with the new brand of cricket that coach Mickey Arthur wants to inculcate in his charges. Given that Azhar had earlier declined the PCB’s request to relinquish the captaincy and focus on his batting, he would doubtless feel he has a point to prove.While Holder has spoken of the need for his batsmen to play spin better, he would also want more from his own lead spinner, Sunil Narine. After going wicketless in the T20I series, Narine returned figures of 1 for 58 in 10 overs in the first ODI. He was outbowled not only by team-mate Sulieman Benn but also by Pakistan’s far less experienced spinners. If it is unrealistic to expect West Indies’ batsmen to dramatically improve against spin overnight, then at least a better showing by Narine could narrow the gap between the sides.

Team news

Umar Akmal must be itching to break back into the ODI side, but Pakistan are unlikely to change their winning combination as they seek to build consistency and stability in their limited-overs set-up.Pakistan (possible): 1 Azhar Ali (capt), 2 Sharjeel Khan, 3 Babar Azam, 4 Shoaib Malik, 5 Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), 6 Mohammad Rizwan, 7 Mohammad Nawaz, 8 Imad Wasim, 9 Wahab Riaz, 10 Mohammad Amir, 11 Hasan AliIn West Indies’ continuing quest for top-order runs, they may consider replacing the scratchy Kraigg Brathwaite, who made his ODI debut in the first match, with Jonathan Carter or Evin Lewis. The rest of the XI is not expected to change much.West Indies (possible): 1 Evin Lewis/Jonathan Carter, 2 Johnson Charles, 3 Darren Bravo, 4 Marlon Samuels, 5 Denesh Ramdin (wk), 6 Kieron Pollard, 7 Jason Holder (capt.), 8 Carlos Brathwaite, 9 Sunil Narine, 10 Sulieman Benn, 11 Shannon Gabriel

Pitch and conditions

Nearly 80 minutes were lost due to a floodlight failure during the first ODI. With Sharjah set to host the second match as well, it is hoped that those issues have been adequately tackled. The weather has been consistently hot and the pitch is likely to be similar in nature to that of the first match. Expect a flat, batting-friendly surface with assistance on offer for disciplined spin bowling. Given the afternoon heat, bowling first might be best avoided.

Stats and trivia

• Kieron Pollard is one match short of completing 100 ODI appearances for West Indies. He has played 99 matches, scoring 2256 at 25.93 and picking up 49 wickets at 38.63
• Four of Pakistan’s six biggest ODI wins against West Indies (in terms of runs) have come in Sharjah. Friday’s 111-run win was their fourth largest.
• Sharjeel Khan has a strike rate of 150 in ODIs in 2016, the best among batsmen who have scored 150-plus runs this year. He has scored 306 off 204 balls in seven innings.

Quotes

“I have had the experience of playing in Sharjah, and it worked well for me to score a maiden hundred. What I did was just to stay till the end and get as many runs as I could; the coach had asked me to play my natural game.”
“Spin has played a heavy part in our downfall. We need to find a way to tick over the scoreboard then maximise our boundary options. We need to buckle down better against spin.”