Abu Dhabi: Skipper Azhar Ali proved his detractors wrong with a century and Babar Azam continued his phenomenal run of form with the bat by scoring his third successive ton as Pakistan completed a 3-0 clean sweep against spineless West Indies by winning the third and final ODI by 136-runs at the Shaikh Zayed Cricket Stadium on Wednesday.

With the completion of the rout, Pakistan have also toppled Windies out of the top eight in the world ranking and have occupied their place.

Windies, set to chase 309 for win, never looked like coming anywhere close to the total.

Pakistan pace attack led by Wahab Riaz extracted enough pace and bounce from the wicket where the visitors’ bowlers looked ordinary.

Kraigg Brathwaite (32) gave some resistance earlier on but Darren Bravo’s painstaking 17 off 40 balls, by itself, spoke volumes of the Windies batting misery on this tour.

And once Denesh Ramdin sold a dummy to get non-striker Marlon Samuels, who was beginning to show some form on tour, run out, Windies were always seeing down the barrel.

West Indies' last five wickets fell for just 13 runs and they were eventually bundled out for 172 runs in 44 overs.

For Pakistan, Mohammad Nawaz finished with figures of 3 for 40 while Riaz settled 2 for 28.     

With a series of lackluster performance, a whitewash was imminent for the Windies but Pakistan skipper Ali too hadn’t proven a point with the bat going into the final ODI.

With his team going through such exciting times having won the T20 series 3-0 and taken an unassailable 2-0 lead in the ODIs, Ali would have been well aware that there is little room for non-performers; especially with the bench strength that Pakistan currently enjoys.

A first-ball duck and nine in the first two matches had clearly piled on the pressure on Ali going into the final ODI at the Shaikh Zayed Stadium. On the eve of the encounter, the coach Mickey Arthur however had backed Ali saying, ‘Batting in the nets Ali was hitting the ball very, very well. He just needs a start and some time out in the middle.’

And on Wednesday, Ali made the most of the opportunity once he made a steady start with Sharjeel Khan (38). Such authoritative was his innings that his 101 came from just 109 deliveries. Ali’s partner-in- crime Azam was in total control as he was in his previous two knocks. His 117 came from 106 balls – a strike rate of 110.37. In all Azam accumulated 360 runs in the three match series and walked away with the man-of-the-series award.

Cutting Benn Suleman for a three to deep point, Ali becomes the first Pakistan ODI captain to score three centuries. He was bowled out by Holder in the next over but that knock would have been enough to silence Ali’s critics who have been gunning for his head from the time Pakistan lost the England series 4-1. Ali, then too, had performed with the bat and was the second highest run getter for Pakistan on that tour.

With yesterday’s innings, the number of scores of 75 or more for Ali as captain was joint-most by a Pakistan captain. Misbah ul-Haq also made seven such scores, but in 83 innings compared to Azhar in 28 innings. The number of centuries by Ali in ODIs was also most by a Pakistan captain. Inzamam-ul-Haq and Shahid Afridi had hit two centuries each as captain.

This series has been all about Azam and the 21-year-old has been a revelation. He continued his phenomenal form in the series and was never troubled by the spineless Windies bowling attack. Azam got to his third successive ton by slashing Sunil Narine through covers for two and celebrated the accomplishment with asajdah (prayer). With that landmark, Azam also became the eighth batsman in the history of the game to score three hundreds in three successive innings. Ali and Azam were also involved in a partnership of 147 runs for the second wicket.