The World T20: A Stunning West Indian Double

 

The World T20

A Stunning West Indian Double

 

April 3^rd  2016

 

The governance of Caribbean cricket may be dysfunctional. The game may be dying as the Test team shambles from defeat to defeat. The island teams are no longer as strong as many Test sides. Youngsters are more likely to want to play basketball in the USA than they are to want to play cricket. But the West Indies still produce naturally talented players. And today, to prove it, the West Indies are both mens’ and womens’ T20 World Champions.

While the victory of the men was not a huge surprise – they were narrow favourites after all – no one expected a double. After England won the inaugural tournament in 2009, Australia have won the next three. The Australian boast is that players like Ellyse Perry are so good that they would not be out of place in the mens’ team. The Australian womens’ game is fully professional. What hope did a bunch of amateurs have against that kind of fire power?

And more after a nervous start saw the Australians race away and set a target bigger than any conceded in the tournament save by the overpowered Irish and Bangladeshis. Even that was a reasonable comeback. Most people thought that Australia would win with ease, but logic does not always rule in T20. A stunning opening partnership of 120 between Hayley Matthews and Stefanie Taylor set up the chase and Deandra Dottin made sure that the West Indies got over the line. Whereas Ellyse Perry has had a quite anonymous tournament, Dottin has been immense: 129 runs and 9 wickets @ 13.6. Stefanie Taylor though, has been phenomenal: 246 runs and 8 wickets @ 15.3.

The high scores in the womens’ Final made a high-scoring mens’ Final seem likely. Again, things did not work out as expected. When the West Indies won the Toss and decided to chase for the sixth time you sensed that the title was already in the bag barring a major brain-fade. When England had lost both openers in 11 balls and the hapless Morgan soon after – with 145 runs in ten appearances for England in official and unofficial T20s this year, he is struggling for runs – it looked as if the match could be embarrassingly one-sided. 23-3 after 5 overs is no way to set a winning total. Incredibly though, from the end of over 3 to the end of over 19, England were always ahead on runs scored: after 13 overs, as many as 27 ahead.

Bizarrely, after David Willey took the new ball, Joe Root took the second over and wickets with his first and third balls: the West Indian openers lasted even less time than their English counterparts had. Fifteen balls, the West Indies 11-3. Game on. Thanks very much. Root did not bowl again. And Moeen Ali did not bowl at all.

In the end, the key moment was perhaps the first ball of the seventh over. Plunkett bowls a slower ball. Samuels nicks. Buttler takes a low catch and, for about thirty seconds, the West Indies are 37-4. Fortunately for Samuels, he had not crossed the boundary rope because replays showed that Buttler had dropped the catch, only to take it on the rebound. Samuels was reprieved, the wickets wound back and Samuels anchored the West Indies with 85*. It should not have been enough. Willey and Jordan kept things tight in overs 17-19. It comes to something when you take 11 off an over at the death but it is a tragedy because it is nowhere near enough. Two miserly overs from Jordan left Ben Stokes with nineteen to defend. What followed was a horribly painful disintegration. Leg tump half volley hammered for six by Carlos Brathwaite. Slightly short… six again. And six again. Three dots for the super over, but Brathwaite settled things with a fourth consecutive six. Brathwaite ended up with 34 from 10 balls and the party began.

Few people can begrudge the West Indians their triumph. Almost no one fancied them as winners and no one expected them to topple India in the Semi-Final.

For England it is a tournament of positives: deserving finalists. Roy, Jordan, Stokes, Buttler, Willey have all developed as players. Joe Root has been magnificent. Matches have been won from seemingly impossible positions. The team is developing a steel that bodes well for future challenges. The next World T20 will not be until 2020 (how apt!) Now a summer is coming up in which England have two winnable Test series; there must be no final Test slip-ups – both series must be won clinically. The slap and giggle has finished, now minds must turn to the County season already started and to the summer Tests.


[On reflection (next morning): Only time will tell if this is another of those frequent false dawns of West Indian cricket. What is certain is that these two victories will help to keep the flame of cricket alive in the West Indies: given that that flame is flickering and threatening to die, that is no small matter. What is wonderful is that despite everything, despite the very real threat to withdraw by the players in their long-running dispute, they came out to enjoy themselves, to play calypso cricket and to win. They were not distracted by pay, by governance, by lack of respect from their administrators. The West Indies were deserving winners for calmness under pressure when the match looked to have slipped away. They also beat England twice, just to show that it was not an accident. No one gave the West Indies much of a chance before the tournament – never write them off.

For England it was a remarkable “what might have been”. Remember how, in the CricInfo poll before the World T20, just 0.8% of respondents saw England winning the title? Nearly twice as many picked Afghanistan. Three times as many picked Bangladesh. England reached the Final, eliminating South Africa, Sri Lanka and New Zealand on the way and rescued some awful positions in doing so, showing just how tough this new team is becoming and how hard it is to beat them. In a match in which England probably needed to score 190 to off-set the loss of the Toss and bowling second, it took something quite extraordinary in the final over to get the West Indies over the line. Once again, as they had against South Africa, against Afghanistan and against Sri Lanka, England fought back from a seemingly hopeless position – far from an early finish the game was very much alive in the final over. Ben Stokes is devastated. He is treading ground that others have tread previously: Stuart Broad is still remembered for those 6x6 in the inaugural World T20, but he came back to be a pretty useful bowler. Stokes has developed tremendously. Early in the tournament the prospect of him as a death bowler caused terror, but he has done it bravely and well. There is always the danger that a bowler will take some hammer in the death overs and freak feats of hitting are a fact of life, which is what has made Chris Jordan’s performances so remarkable. Regularly taking overs 17 and 19 he has gone for 7 and 8 v West Indies, 3 and 9 v New Zealand, 6 and 7 v Sri Lanka, 5 and 11 v Afghanistan (where he took overs 16 and 19). In an era in which 50-60 runs from the last 4 overs is regarded as pretty standard, those eight death overs have gone for just 55.

Yes, both sides can rightly feel proud of their efforts and achievements.]