The West Indies toured Pakistan in 2024/25 for two Test matches and drew the series 1-1. Danyal Rasool’s tour report as well as the match reports appeared in the 2026 edition of Wisden Cricketers' Almanack.
Pakistan v West Indies in 2024/25
Test matches (2): Pakistan 1 (12pts), West Indies 1 (12pts)
In October 2024, Pakistan – after losing to England on a featherbed – took the series by winning twice on surfaces that turned square. They now tried this formula again, dusting off the pub-style heaters and industrial fans to age the pitches for the two Tests in Multan. They got the conditions they wanted, but not quite the results: West Indies proved resilient enough to pinch the second game and share the series. It allowed them to climb back above their hosts in the battle to avoid the World Test Championship wooden spoon: they finished eighth, Pakistan ninth.
The home spinners Sajid Khan and Nauman Ali carried on their good work from October, taking 31 of the 40 wickets, while the seamers managed just two. But West Indies’ slow bowlers relished the pitches too, with Jomel Warrican enjoying a near perfect series, his pinpoint left-arm orthodox backed up by belligerent lower-order batting. His 7-32 in the opening match were the best figures of the Tests – Nauman took 6-41 in the Second, including a hat-trick – and his 19 cost just nine each. Warrican also emerged with the highest batting average on either side. He was part of a remarkable record: in the first match, the highest scores in West Indies’ first innings came from Nos. 9, 10 and 11, unprecedented in Tests. In the next game, they did it again.
Both Tests, played in foggy, cold conditions in Multan, were over inside three days. The first was the shortest completed Test in Pakistan – 177.2 overs – and might have finished in two days but for a late start. Although Pakistan won by 127 runs, the West Indians fought hard, refusing to let the weather serve as an excuse. And when Kraigg Brathwaite won the toss in the second Test, they knuckled down, setting a target that always looked too much. Warrican did the rest, and his side walked away with a share of the spoils. Soon after, Brathwaite stood down as captain, after winning ten and losing 22 of his 39 Tests in charge.
West Indies’ touring party to Pakistan, 2024/25
*KC Brathwaite, AS Athanaze, KU Carty, JM Da Silva, JP Greaves, KAR Hodge, TA Imlach, AA Jangoo, M Louis, G Motie, A Phillip, KAJ Roach, JNT Seales, K Sinclair, JA Warrican. Coach: AT Coley.
First Test at Multan, January 17-19, 2025
Pakistan won by 127 runs. Pakistan 12pts. Toss: Pakistan. Debuts: Muhammad Hurraira; TA Imlach.
When play finally began after a four-hour delay because of smog, the pitch looked unremarkable. But the ball was soon ragging for Pakistan’s spinners, and the match was over in less than two full days’ play.
Shan Masood won the toss and batted, but Seales made the ball dance and hoop, finding seam and even some swing. Four wickets went down in the first 14 overs, three to Seales, before Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan dug in. For a while, the bowlers – fast and slow – erred in line and length, and the fifth-wicket pair added 141, more than West Indies would manage in either innings. Shakeel swept to great effect, while Rizwan’s judicious footwork helped him collect nine fours, and neutralise the spin.
Both fell to the off-breaks of Sinclair on the second morning, as the last six departed for 43. A total of 230, however, soon looked enormous. Fresh from torturing England on dry pitches, Sajid Khan and Nauman Ali spun a web round the West Indian batsmen: of the top seven, only Brathwaite reached double figures, as the total lurched to 66-8. Sajid and Nauman bowled well, but attention focused more on a pitch providing extreme assistance to the spinners than on the skill of the spinners themselves.
A rearguard from Motie, Warrican and Seales then added 71, with the last three top-scoring for the first time in Test history. Even so, the innings lasted just 25.2 overs, and no one batted for more than 40 minutes.
Given the circumstances, a lead of 93 was significant, and West Indies’ position was made worse once Masood and the debutant Mohammad Huraira had shared an opening stand of 67 on the second evening. Slow left-armer Warrican, who had not shone in the first innings, dragged his side back into the contest, and eventually Pakistan lost all ten wickets for 90. He finished with 7-32 – the best for West Indies in Pakistan – but Masood’s 52 meant the visitors needed the highest total of the match to win.
A target of 251 on a deteriorating track might as well have been twice that: with Sajid taking four early wickets, West Indies never made a serious dent in the chase. Athanaze and the Guyanese newcomer Tevin Imlach – preferred as West Indies’ wicketkeeper to the tour vice-captain Joshua Da Silva – scratched out 41 runs for the sixth wicket. But leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed got in on the act, removing Imlach and shortly afterwards ending the match with three wickets in five balls.
Player of the Match: Sajid Khan.
Second Test at Multan, October 10-14, 2025
West Indies won by 120 runs. West Indies 12pts. Toss: West Indies. Test debuts: Kashif Ali; AA Jangoo.
After the first Test, Brathwaite declared there had not been much between the sides, and challenged his team to adapt to conditions, not complain about them. The West Indians spent extra time in the nets, preparing for another trial by turn – but perhaps the most consequential spin of the match was the toss of the coin. It landed in Brathwaite’s favour.
He had little hesitation batting first, though it soon became clear that was no guarantee of victory. The debutant seamer Kashif Ali bowled four perfunctory overs, and accounted for Louis – Pakistan’s first Test wicket at home by a paceman of the last 57 – before the spinners stole the show. West Indies were again cut to ribbons by Sajid Khan and Nauman Ali on a surface that appeared a carbon copy of its predecessor, even if some of the shotmaking seemed to stem from anxiety over the tricks it might play, rather than those it actually did.
Nauman took a hat-trick – the first by a Pakistan spinner in a Test – as eight wickets tumbled for 54, with Hodge alone reaching double figures. But once more the bottom three, with Roach replacing the injured Jayden Seales, did the batters’ job for them. Motie, with a maiden Test half-century, and Warrican employed an enterprising mix of smears and reverse sweeps to attack the spinners – the only time Sajid, Nauman and Abrar Ahmed looked lost for ideas. Having made history the previous week with the three highest scores of an innings, Nos. 9, 10 and 11 reprised the feat. The last two partnerships contributed 109 and, even though the total was only 163, West Indies had stolen the momentum.
Roach removed the openers, while slow left-armer Motie despatched Babar Azam and Kamran Ghulam to make it 51-4. Saud Shakeel and Mohammad Rizwan faced another salvage operation, and put on 68, to take Pakistan within 44. But that was swiftly squandered as the lower order crumbled against suffocating bowling from Warrican. The last six wickets added just 35, giving West Indies a sliver of a lead.
On the third morning, they made the decisive move. Brathwaite led from the front, launching into Sajid and Nauman to reach an uncharacteristically rapid half-century, in 57 balls. Brathwaite and Amir Jangoo, the Trinidadian debutant, propelled their side to 92-1 – 101 in front – before the spinners pulled things back. Nauman was magical either side of lunch, triggering a collapse of 5-53, but the West Indian lower order again stole precious runs. Five of the bottom six reached double figures, with the seventh-wicket stand of 51 between Imlach and Sinclair invaluable. By the time Sajid wrapped up the innings, West Indies had reached 244, the highest total of the series.
It set Pakistan an improbable 254, which became almost impossible when the openers were each lbw for two. Brief resistance from Babar alongside Ghulam and Shakeel kept the hosts in it, but the fall of Babar at the end of the day, and Shakeel to the third ball of the third morning, were dagger blows to Pakistani aspirations. In what proved the final session, Warrican was at his destructive best on a pitch that turned square, and the tail were all at sea. They lasted about an hour, as Pakistan were hoisted by their own petard.
Player of the Match: JA Warrican. Player of the Series: JA Warrican.
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