Thursday 11 March 2010

So, even the West Indies can dominate

The world was all set to forget that at one point of time most of the international records in both the tests ans one day internationals belonged, starting from the fact that they were the first team to win two world cups till Brian Lara scored an unbeaten 400 against England at St Antigua to not only become the highest individual run scorer but also became the only player to score a quadruple hundred. And, if heir recent past is considered, they have lost most of their fan following who are now a days found betting against them be it against any opposition.

And, the West Indies in most of the occasions were in support of that. They have a recent history of faring so badly in all the three formats of the game that whenever West Indies even goes in for a draw, that used to raise eyebrows. This was the case against Australia when the West Indies drew a test match at Adelaide. And, whenever the West Indies were able to snatch, it was at the cost of their opposition who at times underestimated the same. And, this was evident in the second match against Zimbabwe where the West Indies won by 4 wickets chasing just 207 runs.

However, things improved a lot in the third one dayer played at Kingstown where the West Indies took the game away from Zimbabwe in a one sided manner. The West Indies once again showed Zimbabwe that they have been stripped off their test status some five years back. West Indies once again reminded the Zimbabweans that they could not qualify for either the ICC champions trophy or the world T20 last year. In the third one dayer, Zimbabwe were nowhere in the game and the West Indies also showed the fans that atleast at home they can come out victorious.

This time the West Indies team didn't leave any stone unturned when they excelled in all three departments of the game. This was not really evident when the entire West Indies team could not even go past 250 on board when in today's cricket, 300+ also is an average score. And, like always, the West Indies needed the contribution of Shivnarine Chanderapaul to lead the batting though others followed suit. It was then it was realized that the pitch had nothing to offer for the batsmen when there was only one Zimbabwean batsman who was comparatively better than the rest. There was just 1 six in the entire Zimbabwean innings, with the highest individual score being 35.

Once again, the man of the match was awarded to the wrong person who could all do was to extract something which the pitch assisted. The real challenge was to stand and deliver which was possible from Chanderapaul. But, once again the mistake has to be regretted by all.

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