Sharjah. A confident Pakistan team will go for the kill in the second one-dayer against West Indies at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Sunday aiming to bag the three-match series after having recorded an emphatic victory in the first match on Friday.

The hero of the first match was Pakistan’s 21-year-old opener Babar Azam who cracked his maiden ton. Talking about his knock of 120 runs off 131 balls, he said: “I am very happy with my knock. All I want is to continue the form in the next match too.”

Azam had hit an unbeaten 55 in the first Twenty20 match of the series to place Pakistan on the road to a T20 series win at the Dubai International stadium. In Sharjah, on Friday, he went past his highest score in ODIs of 83 against New Zealand at Auckland this January.

When Gulf News asked whether he aimed for a hundred as soon as he passed his highest score, Azam said: “Even though I knew I crossed my highest score my real aim was to play the full quota of overs and do the best for my team.

“I knew that a good partnership will give my team a good total. So I kept resisting playing any rash shots and I had planned to play all 50 overs. My coach (Mickey Arthur) had a big role in me getting the century as he gave me the confidence to play my natural game and I just applied it.”

When asked which was his best shot during his knock, Azam said: “I felt that my straight drive was the best. I fell to an outstanding catch by Kieron Pollard and it was the best catch of the match. I dedicate my century to my family and the Pakistan team.”

West Indies batsmen once again fell to Pakistan spinners with left-arm spinner Mohammad Nawaz taking four for 42. West Indies skipper Jason Holder had no answer to his team’s poor batting. “Spin has played a heavy part in our downfall. We need to find a way to keep ticking the scoreboard then maximise our boundary options. We need to buckle down better against spin.”

Holder knows that a series defeat in the One-day series too following the 3-0 defeat in the T20 series can inflict huge damage to the confidence of his players. “In this situation, we need to turn things around and we really need to look at ways we can improve. Obviously one big area is the batting. We did see off the new ball. It’s just a matter of rotating the strike a bit better than we did today. I think once we do that we should go into the next match in better stead.”

Start time of match: 3pm.