West Indies' trio of Gudakesh Motie, Jayden Seales and Jomel Warrican scripted a men's Test record amid all doom and gloom for the visitors' batting line-up in the first innings in Multan against Pakistan. West Indies were staring down the barrel at 66/8 with Sajid Khan and Noman Ali eating up their batters all day long without leaving any crumbs before the bowling attack decided to shore up the batting just a bit to frustrate Pakistan.
The last two wickets added 71 runs for the West Indies, more than what the previous eight did as Warrican, Seales and Motie ended up with top three scores by the batters in the innings. This was the first such instance in men's Test innings that No 9, 10 and 11 had the top three individual scores.
With Warrican scoring an unbeaten 31 and Seales smashing a quickfire 22, this was only the third time in a men's Test innings that No 10 and 11 were the two highest-scorers for a team after Tom Garrett and Edwin Evans for Australia against England in 1885 and Jack Leach and Saqib Mahmood for England against the West Indies in 2022.
Sajid Khan ran through the top order with four wickets in a span of 17 balls while Noman took care of the middle and lower order before the West Indies' tailing trio did well enough to reduce the deficit below 100. However, Pakistan with the bat just ran away with the game with skipper Shan Masood leading the charge.
Masood smashed a quickfire 52 before he was run out as it was the last wicket to fall on the day that saw 19 fall on it. Debutant Muhammad Hurraira had a better outing this time around while Babar Azam fell for a low score yet again, however, Pakistan have a 202-run lead already with seven wickets still in hand.