Cricket in April/May 2011: Pakistan vs West Indies

The months of April and May provided cricket viewers with plenty of reasons to get stadium tickets in West Indies, and to keep themselves glued to their television screens in Pakistan and elsewhere. Pakistan’s tour of the West Indies was preceded with a very shaky start, with celebrated captain Shahid Afridi of Pakistani cricket team announcing his decision of withdrawal from the series based on a fallout with the Pakistan Cricket Board(PCB) following the recently held World Cup in India; this decision was later reversed as Afridi was also integrated into the squad. This series picked considerable momentum and eventually provided fans dismayed over Pakistan’s cricket team loss to India in the World Cup semifinal with a focal reason to rejuvenate themselves and relinquish their pride. Pakistan steered to a very lustrous and seemingly effortless victory as they beat West Indies cricket team by seven wickets, with Ahmed Shehzad emerging as the newly hailed idol. Pakistan maintained their winning streak in the next two ODIs, grabbing victories by seven and three wickets respectively.  However, their winning streak got tainted in the fourth ODI, when the Duckworth Lewis method awarded a very narrow victory to West Indies, the precedent for this decision being a mere one run.  The fifth ODI enabled West Indies cricket team to further consolidate their success, as they beat Pakistan by a significant margin of 10 wickets. Yet, these two victories did not offer much of a reason to celebrate to the host nation, as the series sealed 3-2 in the favour of Pakistan. Proceeding the ODI series, the Test series constituting a test match each at Providence and Bassetere emerged to be a tie, as West Indies achieved a narrow 40 run victory in the first one, and Pakistan cruised to a 196 victory in the second. All in all, this tour provided a considerable boost to the Pakistani cricket team following their intense and shocking dismissal from the World Cup and prior to their tour of Zimbabwe in September 2011.

 

2007-2010 ICC World T20: Best partnership by an opener to date

They came, they smashed and made the best first wicket partnership total of 145 runs, but all went in drain for West Indies against Proteas bowling attack. Chris Gayle and Devon Smith are the best opening pair to date in the history of ICC World T20, where they both gave a sound base to the West Indies batting line by scoring 145 runs. As the Windies lost Devon’s early wicket who went to the pavilion at 35 of 34 balls, none of the players except Chris Gayle stood firm on the crease. Chris Gayle’s individual score was 117 runs of 57 balls with 10 sixes and 7 fours, which is still unbeaten. West Indies were all out on 205 runs.

South Africa achieved the target with a loss of 2 wickets and won the match by 8 wickets. Although South Africa won the first ever match of the 2007 ICC World T20, player of the match award went to Chris Gayle on is phenomenal performance with the bat.

2007-2010 ICC World T20: 5 wickets in a match by a spinner

It’s interesting to watch that none of the spinners in history T20 World Cup has taken 5 wickets in a match however, we see quite a number of spinners whether leg break or off break who have duped four batsmen in an inning by their excellent bowling spell. In order to sort out the best bowling figures by a spinner, economy rate of the bowler is considered as a benchmark. On the basis of economy rate, Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi comes on the top position with superb bowing figures. Shahid Afridi who is a leg break googly bowler has taken 4 wickets for 11 runs at an economy rate 2.75 playing against Netherlands at Lords during 2009 ICC World T20 match.

Following is a list of spinners who took 4 wickets during 2007-2010 ICC World T20. The spinners are sorted out on their respective economy rate.

• Shahid Afridi (Pak)
• Shahid Afridi(Pak)
• Saeed Ajmal (Pak)
• Daniel Vettori (NZ)

Top ten Twenty 20 openers/middle order batsmen of West Indies

Opening a Twenty 20 match as an opener is a big responsibility. Batsmen have to be calm and quick in batting to make a decent score in the fast format of Twenty 20 cricket. Chris Gayle of the West Indies team is the most successful opener of Twenty 20 matches. He holds the highest score of the world in the history of Twenty 20 tournaments. He is the most consistent high scoring opener of the West Indies’ Twenty 20 team. He holds the highest score of 117 runs in his career. There are many other good middle order batsmen in West Indies’ Twenty 20 team. The list of the top ten Twenty 20 openers and middle order batsmen of the West Indies team is shown below.

Batsman	Runs	Year
Chris Gayle	117	11 Sep 2007
Chris Gayle	98	9 May 2010
Chris Gayle	88	6 Jun 2009
Lendl Simmons	77	13 Jun 2009
Chris Gayle	67	26 Dec 2008
Dwayne Bravo	66*	12 Jun 2009
Chris Gayle	63*	19 Jun 2009
Devon Smith	61	28 Jun 2007
Chris Gayle	61	29 Jun 2007
Ramnaresh Sarwan	59	15 Mar 2009

Top 10 fifty scorers of West Indies in ODI

In the West Indies and Barbados, the game of cricket is considered a national sport. Lots of West Indians have played lot of One Day International. The grounds have seen players hitting many fifties locally. They were the players like Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Chris Gayle. Barbados is considered the international capital of “Windies” cricket and it is due largely to the West Indian cricket team.

Whichever the format of the game is, people are always ready to cheer their batsman that drives for the four or hits the fifties. The team has the spirit to do well in the ODI. They try to contribute something for the team and try to make the fifty. Here are top ten who score fifties in ODI most for West Indies.

• B.C. Lara
• C.H. Gayle
• D.L. Haynes
• C.G. Greenidge
• I.V.A. Richards
• S. Chanderpaul
• C.L. Hooper
• W.W. Hinds
• P.V. Simmons
• R.B. Richardson

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