After Brian Lara's magnificent 156 at Adelaide against Pakistan last Friday, West Indies were being considered favourites to meet Australia in the finals of the VB Series. But it was the Pakistanis who stormed into the finals with outstanding back-to-back victories at WACA. And one of those wins came against the seemingly invincible Australians. In all fairness to the West Indies, they did come close to a similar opportunity before rain played spoilsport during the fourth match at Brisbane.

Just when it seemed that Pakistan were destined to pack their bags, they fought back to present Australia a nasty surprise and a definite threat leading up to the best-of-three finals. The win at WACA, Perth with sixteen balls to spare materialized largely due to one of their reliable all-rounders, Abdul Razzaq, who had been a pale shadow of himself so far. He struck with a splendid four for fifty-three, including the wickets of Adam Gilchrist for forty-seven and Ricky Ponting for twenty-nine to restrict Australia to 253. Michael Clarke rescued Australia from six down for 167 with a-run-a-ball seventy-five but could not do much more.

Pakistan's win was far from easy. Inzamam-ul-Haq hinted that Yousuf Youhana and he would bat in their original positions up the order to rectify the folly of coming in late in pressure situations. From three down for forty-nine, Youhana and the Pakistan skipper built on a patient, watchful partnership of seventy-four for the fourth wicket. Shahid Afridi's typically belligerent cameo of thirty run from thirteen balls was typically cut short. But Abdur Razzaq rose to the occasion with a tremendous innings of sixty-three off just sixty-one balls with a little help from Rana Naved-ul-Hasan to take Pakistan to a highly unexpected three wicket victory on Super Sunday and one step closer to the finals.

Pakistan's resurgence meant that Tuesday's final league play-off between Pakistan and the West Indies was a virtual semi-final. What a humdinger it was! Inzamam, who came in for a fair bit of criticism for Pakistan's mixed performances, would be hoping that more of his strategizing came to fruition. Yet again, Youhana, buoyed by a fine seventy-four by his skipper while sharing a stand of 134 for the fourth wicket. The sluggishness of the early half of the innings was dismissed by sensible and assertive batting by Youhana and later a cameo from Afridi set West Indies a formidable total of 307 to chase to secure a place against Australia.

While the 300-plus total would have been off-putting for most teams, West Indies fought back despite Rana's strike of two early wickets. Ramnaresh Sarwan led the way with a strong batting performance that bordered on the relentless. He rocked off the back foot with alarming ease to play the delicate cuts and the sweetly-timed drives and the pulls were simply breathtaking as they were fast and furious. The ninety-four run stand for the fourth wicket with Shivnarine Chanderpaul kept Pakistan on their toes and the spectators on the edge of their seats. But after Sarwan was stumped for eighty-seven off Afridi and Chanderpaul disappeared right behind on fifty-eight courtesy Iftikhar Rao Anjum, West Indies had lost three wickets in the span of nine runs and looking bleak at 203 for six. Not even a half-century stand between Wavell Hinds and Courtney Browne could resurrect West Indies' horrendous change of plans.

The superlative performances were marred by saddening news that Younis Khan lost his father on Sunday and Rana did not get an opportunity to celebrate his four-wicket haul as his father met with a similar fate.