A close encounter between the former Champions’ West Indies vs Bangladesh that took place yesterday, where the Caribbeans remain alive in the T20 World Cup after beating Bangladesh by three runs in their Super 12 match.
With some sluggish start by West Indies with the bat, however, towards the end, they posted a decent target of 143 on the board and after that, the Tigers fell short as Andre Russell bowled a brilliant last over. It was a great fight between the two teams as both the teams needed a win to keep their semi-final hopes alive.
For West Indies, Roston Chase makes his international T20 debut yesterday while Jason Holder was also included in the playing XI replacing Lendl Simmons and Hayden Walsh.
Winning the toss, the Tigers decided to bowl first. Now, let us discuss a few key aspects from the close encounter between the two.
A slow start by the Caribbeans
Both the West Indies openers Chris Gayle who was opening along with Elvin Lewis could not do much for their side. It was the dangerous Mustafizur Rahman who struck with the bowl early for Bangladesh and thus successfully dismissed Lewis during the third over.
The Debutant Roston Chase was tested yesterday during his first T20 I game and he proved to be tough.
The debutant was seen to be responsively sticking to one side while wickets kept falling at the other end. Three important quick partnerships that helped West Indies progress along with the innings were Chase and Heytmere’s 14 runs from 14 balls, Pollard and Chase’s 30 runs from 35 balls, and Chase and Pooran’s 20 runs from 14 balls. These came during the most crucial times for the Caribbeans’. He was bowled during the 19th over by Shoriful Islam.
Nicholas Pooran’s responsible yes extensively explosive innings – 40 runs from just 22 balls came from his bat towards the lower middle order and during the time of utmost necessity for his team. He was striking as high as 181.8 and was particularly unstoppable for a moment.
The Bangladeshi Bowlers were bowling good lines and were successful in creating pressure and hard to hit until the 14th over. Post that things changed drastically while proving great for the Caribbeans. However, Shoriful, Mahedi, and Mustafizur managed to take two wickets each.
Jason Holder’s unbeaten 18 runs and around 58 runs scored towards the last six overs and with a sensible lower middle order play, the Carribeans posted a score of 143/7 at the end of 20 overs. 19 runs came from the 20th over itself- thus proving fatal for Bangladesh as they remained short of just three runs to claim a victory.
The defeat of the Tigers’ by the slightest of margins
It was Md Naim and their skipper Shakib Al Hasan who opened for the Tigers and thus gave a slow yet cautious start. It was an interesting decision where Hasan was opening his fourth time in the T20s.
By the end of the powerplay, they were just 27/2 – Hasan leaving the show early during the fifth over followed by Naim in the next over.
It was the dangerous Russell who took Hasan’s wicket followed by Holder who bowled the other opener at an early stage of the game. The WI bowlers kept their length back during the powerplay.
The Bangladeshi Batters were refusing to give up and continued their fight. A game that tested both the lower middle order batters, and a few important partnerships took the game towards the last over.
Liton Das (44 runs from 43 balls) and Mahmadullah ( 31* runs from 24 balls) were particularly brilliant with the bat and were seen to be taking the responsibility quite nicely.
Liton made three vital partnerships along with Soumya Sarkar, Mushfiqur Rahman, and Mahmadulla but a tight 19th over bowled by Bravo restricted them to 13 runs of the last over. The final over by Russell conceded nine runs and by the slightest of margin, they were victorious last night thus keeping their Semi-final hopes alive.