West Indies exploit proper home conditions to take emphatic 2-0 series lead
Cameron Ponsonby14-Dec-2023It doesn’t get better than watching cricket in Grenada. A spectacularly beautiful island that’s home to the inexplicably sized National Stadium that can hold 20% of the island’s population, it’s also home to 18 waterfalls, 45 beaches and the world’s greatest Pina Colada at Esther’s Bar in the Spice Market.Cricket in the Caribbean is a bucket-list item for thousands of people who, for the most part, flock to Barbados first and Antigua second. All of those people are wrong. You should come here, because those that did were treated to a vintage West Indian T20 performance that lived up to the island’s scenery.West Indies are very loudly looking like a good team. In home conditions on wickets that are sticking, their bowling attack featuring hard-length-hitting seamers and the spin of Akeal Hosein and Gudakesh Motie, combine to form a quintet for which the ball is out of sync with reality. It always seems to arrive just earlier or later than you expect.Their clever, sleight-of-hand cricket with the ball blends with ugly, but enthralling, brute-strength cricket with the bat to produce a winning formula. West Indies beat India across a five-match series here a matter of months ago. And now they look set to add the reigning T20 World Champions to their list of victims too.There is no subtlety to a West Indian batting innings. They block it. Or they belt it. Almost half the deliveries during their innings were dot balls, with the average around the world being closer to a third. It’s the Daren Sammy model that won them the 2012 and 2016 World Cups when he was captain. And now it’s the method they hope will win them another with him as coach.”The world knows that we, as Caribbean batters, are power-hitters,” captain Rovman Powell said after the match, having himself struck five sixes in his 28-ball 50. “We try and keep working on our game to see if we can be a touch better than the world in terms of power. Because they are a lot better than us at getting singles and that.”England are good at getting one. West Indies are good at getting six. And in a sport where quantity of runs literally decides who wins and who loses, I know which I’d prefer.Related
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Such is the power of Powell’s team that, even when they had slipped to 54 for 4 after eight overs, England knew that an onslaught was coming. Powell himself was at one stage on five off 13 deliveries, before scoring 45 off his following 15.The beauty of West Indies playing T20s on these slow, slightly sticky wickets is that it makes it hard for their opponents to time the ball, but they themselves are strong enough to clear the ropes even from mishits. Wickets in the Caribbean are often criticised for being poor, leading to batters unable to craft long first-class innings. But on the flip side, it makes for a region of batters who know that, if batting for a long time isn’t an option, batting for a good time is imperative.”To be honest, it’s not particularly easy to bat spin in the Caribbean,” Powell said. “That’s why sometimes we have Caribbean batters get such poor technique and all that stuff. So we know it won’t be easy for the English batters either because they’re coming off good wickets in England.”It’s tough to run in silk pyjamas. And tough to beat the Windies on their own patch with a diet of 70mph Whitgift School-fed half-volleys.Powell, along with Brandon King, who batted throughout the West Indies’innings for 82 not out, were brutal in the back end, taking overs 13-17 for 80 runs, including one from Adil Rashid that went for just three. And one from Sam Curran that went for 30.Spin was the not-so-secret ingredient throughout the match. Rashid bowled superbly to finish his four overs with 2 for 11, only to be outshone by the Windies spinners of Motie and Hosein, who combined for eight overs, 3 for 33.”Last game they [England] got off to a flier so we tried our best not to let them do that,” Powell said. “We know that if we control the powerplay it will be difficult with our spinners in the middle overs because it’s not such a placid wicket.”But for every winner, there must be a loser, with defeat meaning this new era of English white-ball cricket reads one win and four losses.Gudakesh Motie claimed miserly figures of 1 for 9•Associated Press”We played good cricket again for 90% of the match,” Matthew Mott, the head coach, said. That message is becoming too familiar for a team that, as of a matter of weeks ago, were double-World Cup holders. “We will try to come up with more solutions. We are trying hard, we are close, and today we were a couple of good hits away from a win.””You would have to say yes,” Mott continued when asked if the Windies’ six-hitting ability has been the difference between the two sides. “Every time you clear the rope it’s a big win, particularly early in an over. We have got some really good six-hitters ourselves…they have just executed a bit better than us in the last two games.”And it was that execution that prompted England to make a change for today, with Moeen Ali coming in for Ben Duckett. The thinking was that, after the West Indies onslaught at Bridgetown where they hit 14 sixes, another bowling option was needed. And it worked. Today the West Indies only hit 13.The wicket of Chris Woakes in the penultimate over of the chase was the nail in the coffin for England’s hopes, with 28 still needed off the final seven balls.It was only then that the local DJ sparked up Sweet Caroline for the first time, 18 months on from playing London Bridge is Falling Down as the West Indies sealed a ten-wicket win. Grenada offers up a home crowd that is a proper home crowd, and in-ground entertainment that puts on a genuine Caribbean show and not a school disco for the English.The expectation is that the second T20I here will be even better, being a weekend event rather than a day-game for which you have to bunk off work. Today was an example of Caribbean cricket at its best, both on and off the pitch. And if cricket isn’t to your liking, you can be sure that the Pina Colada at Esther’s will be. See you there.
