IT’S A WRAP! For the first time in what feels like forever the WI have run out 4-1 victors over the Men from Down Under. The fact that this was by no stretch of the imagination Australia’s strongest possible T20 team should not dampen the delight of the cricket-loving Caribbean public in the slightest – our Men in Maroon have been so unpredictable and inconsistent for such an extended period of time that we, as fans, deserve to revel in the reality that an age-old nemesis has received a long-overdue bit of comeuppance.
The final game of the series saw skipper Pooran win his first toss and opt to bat. This created immediate problems for the Aussies as somebody switched out Evin Lewis’ bat with a hand-held rocket launcher and let him loose on the bowling attack. From the moment Lewis deposited the sixth ball of the innings for 6, he never looked back and tore into any and everything that was even remotely in his strike zone. In successive partnerships of 40,43 and 41 with Fletcher, Gayle, and Simmons respectively for the first 3 wickets, Lewis contributed 26, 21, and 32 to finish with a brilliant 79 off 34 deliveries with 4 boundaries and NINE massive sixes. The WI top 5 batters all made useful contributions to see their total at 169 by the end of the 15th over, but this time around the lower half of the line-up could not summon their expected late-innings explosion. The Aussies found the right death overs combination to limit the WI to just 30 runs from their final 30 deliveries and a total of 199-8 was decidedly less than what it at one point looked like reaching.
Australia’s run chase, already at a daunting run rate of exactly 10 an over to win, got off to another shaky start as Cottrell had Phillipe caught off the last ball of over #1. Mitchell Marsh announced his arrival at the crease with successive scoring shots for 6, 4, and 4 off the clearly not-match-fit Oshane Thomas and settled quickly into rhythm with skipper Finch. The inability to form long-lasting partnerships came back to bite the Aussies once again, however, and after putting together 37 in rapid time, Marsh fell to Russell. Henriques and Finch compiled the highest effort of the night for Australia by putting on 49 for the 3rd wicket, but after their separation, nothing else of significant value materialized and the Aussies closed their final innings of the series on 183-9, a late cameo by Wade getting them closer than once looked likely.
It would be a fair assessment to say that while the WI can take good positive moments from this series, there are still some worrying issues that can potentially undermine efforts at the T20 World Cup later this year. Whereas vs SA earlier only Lewis scored more than 75 runs, this time around, 6 of the WI batters crossed that mark, with 4 of them (Lewis, Gayle, Simmons, and Russell) all getting over 100 runs for the series. There is still too much reliance on simply power-hitting their way out of trouble for my liking – a whopping 58 sixes were smashed over the 5 matches – with an average of 7 overs’ worth of dot balls faced per game. In the bowling department, Walsh Jr. and his 12 scalps were double that of Russell in 2nd place on the list. I could be picky and say that I wish the wickets were spread more evenly amongst all our bowlers and that their bowling averages were less than the over 7 runs per over conceded by each of the main bowlers used throughout the series. What I will do, however, is take heart from the fact that out of a maximum of 50 wickets that the WI could have taken in this series, they claimed 41, with only 4 of those via the run-out route. 37 Aussie wickets by a bowling attack that is not considered the team’s strength are anything to scoff at.
Onwards, then, to the ODI series, where there will be personnel changes and hopefully tactical adjustments accordingly. I will confess that my mood now is considerably better than I thought it would be at the end of this series, as is that of the rest of the collective Caribbean fan base. As always, we will watch on in hope.
