PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate In Multan With A Victory For Pakistan

Pakistan’s Briefest Test Match with an outcome PAK vs WI, statistics and findings.

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PAK vs WI: Pakistan hosted a Test match at Multan during the 2024-25 season, which became memorable for various record-breaking statistics that spoke about the spin bowlers of Pakistan. The match between Pakistan and the West Indies was not only the shortest Test match in terms of balls bowled in the country’s history but also witnessed some remarkable individual and team performances.

Key stats from the PAK vs WI Test in Multan

1. Shortest Test Match in Pakistan with a Result

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PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominates In Multan With A Victory For Pakistan
PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate in Multan With A Victory For Pakistan (Credits- ESPN)

A total of 1064 balls or 177.3 overs had been bowled in the Test at Multan, which means it was one of the shortest tests played in Pakistan that had produced a clear result. The previous short test with an outcome in Pakistan was 1080 balls in the match between Pakistan and West Indies when they played out in Faisalabad in the year 1990.

2. Low Run Total in Asia

PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominates In Multan With A Victory For Pakistan
PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate in Multan With A Victory For Pakistan (Credits- ESPN)

The Multan Test had both teams obtaining the collective total score of 647 runs, the third-lowest in all of Asia where all 40 wickets fall. For context, the lowest such total in Asia was the 537 runs scored in the 1959 Dhaka Test between Pakistan and West Indies. The second-lowest total was when India and Australia scored 605 runs each other in the 2004 Test at Wankhede.

This low-scoring affair reflects the extraordinary dominance of spinners, who took all 40 wickets during the match.

3. West Indies’ Shortest Innings in a Test

PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate in Multan With A Victory For Pakistan
PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate in Multan With A Victory For Pakistan (Credits- ESPN)

In this Test, West Indies faced the smallest number of 371 balls in any Test match, and that went all the way to an end where all 20 wickets fell. Prior to this Test, they have previously faced a maximum of 450 balls while still losing to the opposition during a Test, a feat last experienced in their Test at Leeds back in the year 2000 against England. This speaks even more for the bowling which went on exceptionally, especially for the spinners.

Interestingly, Pakistan also didn’t take 20 wickets in fewer than 491 balls in their 2001 Test against Bangladesh in Multan. That is also an extremely rare occurrence.

4. Most Spinner Wickets in a Game

PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate in Multan With A Victory For Pakistan
PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate in Multan With A Victory For Pakistan (Credits- ESPN)

The 2025 Multan PAK vs WI Test was the third test in the home season for which Pakistan’s spinners were able to get all 20 wickets. Before this season, Pakistan’s spinners were able to manage this feat twice — against West Indies in Faisalabad in 1980 and against England in Lahore in 1987.

In this match, 34 wickets were taken by the spinners which is the highest record of wickets in a Test match in Pakistan. The earlier record was 32 wickets, which came during the 2023 Multan Test played between Pakistan and England.

5. Jomel Warrican’s Historic Performance

PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate in Multan With A Victory For Pakistan
PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate in Multan With A Victory For Pakistan (Credits- ESPN)

A notable performance was that of West Indies spinner Jomel Warrican, who took 7 wickets for 32 runs in Pakistan’s second innings. This became the best-ever bowling performance by a visiting spinner in Pakistan. Before this, the best figures for a visiting bowler were by Ravi Ratnayake and Kapil Dev, both of whom took 8 wickets in a match in Pakistan.

Well, Warrican did something outstandingly brilliant that was not just the best of a visiting spinner but also made him only the fifth visiting bowler in all history to take a 10-wicket haul in a Test in Pakistan. He is the first to do that from the West Indies, of course.

6. A Record-Breaking Day

PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate in Multan With A Victory For Pakistan
PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate in Multan With A Victory For Pakistan (Credits- ESPN)

The second day of the Multan PAK vs WI Test witnessed 19 wickets falling, thereby making a new record for the highest number of wickets taken in a day in a Test match played in Pakistan. Earlier, the highest was 18 wickets, recorded in the 2003 Test between Pakistan and Bangladesh, played in Multan.

The third day continued to go wacko with wickets as there were 17 wickets all through the match. 12 of these wickets came in just the first two-and-a-half hours of the first session of the day, the most by a session since 2010 in a Men’s Test Match. The closest was when Sri Lanka took on Australia in the test at Galle in 2022, too, where, again, on the third day, 12 wickets tumbled before lunch.

7. A first in history for West Indies batting

PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate in Multan With A Victory For Pakistan (Credits- ESPN)
PAK vs WI: Spinners Again Dominate in Multan With A Victory For Pakistan (Credits- ESPN)

One of the very unusual events happening in the Multan Test had occurred during the first innings against West Indies when, for the first time in the Men’s Test, the top-three run-scorers belonged to the ninth tenth, and eleventh-ranked batsman of a team- Jomel Warrican, while batting at number 10, reached an unbeaten score of 31, Number 11- Jayden Seals 22, and lastly, for the first-time batsman numbered 9 at Gudakesh Moti, 19 run.

This has occurred only twice in the history of Test cricket. The first was in the 1885 Test between Australia and England when Australia’s Tom Garrett and Edwin Evans topped the scoreboard. The second time was in 2022 when Jack Leach and Saqib Mahmood of England were the top scorers against the West Indies.

The 2024 and 2025 Multan Test was quite a remarkable match in terms of both the results and the records created. It had the shortest Test match in Pakistan’s history and, at the same time, created record-breaking performances by spinners and individual players. Cricket, as it is remembered, was a thrilling one, and the achievements that were made were extraordinary.

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