So Long As There Is Shai, There Is Hope For West Indies

There is hope after all. When there is Shai, there must be optimism that the West Indies will shape into a good white ball force that can only add more excitement to world cricket. The way in which the Shai Hope’s West Indians fought Team India all the way to the unfortunately rainy decider suggests that limited-overs cricket may see more edge-of-the-seat finishes as seen in the series.

There is a saying that, even in times of extreme El Nino-induced drought, if you so much as pitch two sets of stumps in the south of India then the rain will come down at once. It is a pity that Bengaluru did not get the kind of tingling decider that the fifth T20I could have been though the suspicion remains that Team India may have won it anyway since they play the big games well.

The way Naman Dhir took apart the West Indian bowlers towards the end overs did suggest that Team India would have put up enough runs to defend except, of course, if Hope were to decide that he would take the match deep right to the very end as he did in that exhilarating chase of 250 to level the series score and bring the West Indies within a win of a series triumph in India after more than a decade.

A sentimental attachment to the halcyon days of West Indian cricket, with their armada of fast bowlers and hard-hitting batsmen may have led to a hankering for cricketers from the Caribbean to regain their old glory again. That is never going to be possible given the financial constraints under which cricket on the multi-islands operate under the common badge of Cricket West Indies. But in white ball cricket, which is going to be all the rage in the future too, they have a clear chance of finding the mix of talent to be extremely competitive.

In 2016, Carlos Brathwaite surprised the world and Team England with a brutal string of four sixes in the final over of the T20 World Cup when his team needed 19 to win. He may have disappeared from the scene after that, but what he had proved that day was that T20I cricket is tailor made for any batting lineup, or even an individual batsman with the explosive power to hit sixes consistently. That no total is considered safe enough these days is clear proof of how batting power has evolved in modern cricket.

There may be weak spots in West Indies cricket even in white ball as fast bowlers are as liable to be taken apart when they return to finish their quota of four overs. But their fielders must take their catches if they are to compete harder. But then you could say the same even of the reigning T20 champions Team India whose bowling and fielding have also looked ragged when under attack, especially when Hope got stuck into them along with his heavy hitting colleagues like Jangoo, Rutherford, Hetmyer and others.

The West Indians in India served enough warning signs to India regarding the ODI World Cup that they are preparing for in earnest after having lost the previous one in India at Ahmedabad when the batting failed to live up to the billing in the final. While many of the selection experiments since then have proved instructive, not all could be said to have helped forge the kind of pace-spin bowling combination needed for the ODI World Cup.

It is good in a way that the West Indians showed up as they did in India because the last time they did not even qualify for the World Cup since they lost to Scotland. Their presence and the more sporting pitches of countries in the south of Africa should lend intriguing notes to the competition with Hope in charge and a set of batsmen ready to take on the world in this matter of big hitting in near baseball style.

(R. Mohan is Resident Editor of Chennai and Tamil Nadu editions of Deccan Chronicle)