Eight days ago, Babar Azam’s return to the Pakistan Test captaincy looked like it might end almost as soon as it began. A five-wicket haul from Jayden Seales had bowled Pakistan out for 120 in the first Test at Tarouba, handing West Indies a 90-run win and extending Pakistan’s away losing streak to eight matches in a row. By the time the teams reassembled at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain, the pressure on Babar was intense enough that pundits were already drafting obituaries for his second stint in charge.
Instead, Pakistan produced one of their best overseas performances in years. Abdullah Shafique’s unbeaten 160 anchored a first-innings total of 387, off-spinner Sajid Khan tore through West Indies with 4 for 85, and left-arm spinner Jomel Warrican’s 6 for 112 for the hosts could not stop Pakistan chasing down a modest target with ease. Babar himself sealed the eight-wicket win by dancing down the pitch to smash Warrican for successive sixes, an unmistakably deliberate, almost cathartic finish given everything riding on the result.
A Series That Refused to Break the Pattern
The 1-1 scoreline was, in a strange way, entirely predictable. This is now the third consecutive Pakistan-West Indies Test series to finish level, a run stretching back through 2021 and 2025. Both boards have invested heavily in producing results-oriented pitches for these contests, and both teams have shown they can win in exactly the conditions that undo them elsewhere. West Indies’ pace attack, spearheaded by Seales, remains one of the most dangerous in world cricket on responsive Caribbean surfaces; Pakistan’s spin cartel of Sajid Khan and Noman Ali has become their most reliable weapon on flatter, more worn tracks.
Shafique’s Redemption Arc
For Shafique, the innings was overdue vindication. The 25-year-old opener had been dropped and recalled multiple times over the past two years amid inconsistent form, and a poor outing in the first Test had again raised questions about his place. His 160 not out, compiled across more than five hours with disciplined shot selection against a hostile new-ball attack, was the signature innings of the series and earned him the Player of the Match award. “I just wanted to bat time and trust the process,” Shafique said after the match, according to Cricinfo’s report, crediting the team’s revamped batting approach under the new coaching staff.
Babar’s Captaincy: Vindicated, For Now
Babar’s first stint as Test captain ended in 2022 amid friction with the board and a string of below-par results. His reappointment this year was framed by the Pakistan Cricket Board as a stabilizing move ahead of a packed 2026-27 calendar that includes tours of England and a home World Test Championship cycle. Not everyone in Pakistan cricket circles was convinced it was the right call — former captain Rashid Latif and several columnists argued the job should have gone to a specialist red-ball leader rather than Pakistan’s premier batter, whose own Test average has fluctuated in recent years. The Trinidad win doesn’t silence that debate, but it buys Babar time, and a series-levelling result away from home is a currency Pakistan Test captains have rarely enjoyed this decade.
What West Indies Take From the Draw
For West Indies, coached under a rebuilding program aimed at restoring Test relevance after years in the doldrums, a share of the spoils against a full-strength Pakistan side is not a bad outcome. Captain Kraigg Brathwaite’s side showed real bite in the first Test, and Seales’ emergence as a genuine strike bowler is arguably the more significant long-term story than the series result itself. The concern is depth: once Seales and the frontline pacers were nullified by Pakistan’s disciplined second-innings batting, West Indies had little else to fall back on, and their middle order collapsed twice under sustained spin pressure in Port of Spain.
What’s Next
Both sides now scatter to different corners of the WTC 2025-27 cycle. Pakistan travel to England for a three-Test series starting August 19 at Headingley, a tour freighted with extra significance given Joe Root’s return to the England captaincy. West Indies, meanwhile, host New Zealand in white-ball cricket before their own Test commitments resume later in the year. For Babar, the real test of this reinstated captaincy will not be a hard-fought draw in the Caribbean but how his side responds against Root’s England on pitches that traditionally favor swing over spin — a examination that will tell us far more about whether Trinidad was a turning point or an aberration.