Pakistan v West Indies, 2016-17

At Abu Dhabi, October 21-25, 2016. Pakistan won by 133 runs. Toss: Pakistan.
Can a bowler take ten wickets to decide a Test, yet still be criticised? Yasir Shah's performance here invited the question. He earned the match award and sealed the series, but rarely looked like the player who had enchanted the world for two years. The Sheikh Zayed Stadium has never been kind to bowlers, and again the surface was dull. Patience can be the key, lulling the batsmen to wooziness with sedative repetition.

Most leg-spinners find such precision difficult yet, since his debut, Yasir's accuracy had set him apart. In his first series against Australia, in 2014-15, he had - according to analytics tool CricViz - landed 93% of deliveries in Dubai on a good length, and 74% in Abu Dhabi. But in this series, Yasir regressed: 29% in Dubai, and under 50% in Abu Dhabi.

It was difficult to recall how many of his wickets here (and in the previous match) were the result of genuinely good deliveries. In the second innings he outdid Chase, who was drawn by drift and beaten on the outside edge, and - with a skidder - Blackwood. But a more settled line-up may not have been so compliant in such unsparing conditions. Even if West Indies had handled Yasir better, winning would have been a struggle. In the six years Pakistan have played Tests in Abu Dhabi, it has become their fortress: this was their fifth victory in nine Tests, with no losses. Their method is as predictable as it is successful. Misbah-ul-Haq wins the toss (here for the eighth time), and his batsmen carefully raise a withering score (here passing 400 in their first innings for the seventh).

This effort had familiar protagonists: Younis Khan made a record 13th hundred since turning 35, one more than Gooch, Dravid and Tendulkar. Younis and Misbah became the most productive Test pairing for Pakistan, before Asad Shafiq and Sarfraz Ahmed chipped in with pleasant fifties. Gabriel's muscular pace - touching the mid-90s - earned a deserving five-for, his first in Tests, but Pakistan had scoreboard pressure. Sometimes the surface is too slow for the strategy to bear fruit, but this time the West Indian batting was co-operative enough. Seven of their top nine batted for at least an hour in the first innings, yet none reached 50, and they folded to 224. That simply added to the frustration: they had the technique to hang around, but not the temperament to last. After Misbah again ignored the follow-on, he watched his top three make fifties, and left West Indies attempting another escape act. But, despite Blackwood's 95, and their highest fourth-innings total against Pakistan, they finally yielded to Yasir on the last afternoon, leaving Misbah with ten series wins, the most by an Asian Test captain.
Man of the Match: Yasir Shah.