T20 WC 2021: WI vs BAN Review – West Indies stay alive with a thrilling win over Bangladesh

The defending champions West Indies finally got a win under their belt as they defeated Bangladesh in a Super 12 round game at the Sharjah Cricket Ground. The match was extremely closely fought and ended up being a nail-biting thriller which was won by the Caribbean team by just three runs.

Bangladesh won the toss and elected to field first. Both the openers of West Indies were dismissed early as they found it difficult to stitch a solid stand. Roston Chase made 39 runs from 46 balls while Kieron Pollard got hurt only to return again and stay unbeaten on 14 runs from 18 balls. But the real flurry came from Nicholas Pooran who scored 40 runs from 22 balls. Jason Holder’s 5-ball 15 also pushed their team’s total to 142 for 7.

Mahedi Hasan, Shoriful Islam and Mustafizur Rahman were the pick of Bangladeshi bowlers, picking up two scalps each. With the bat, they struggled in a similar fashion like West Indies but Liton Das’ 43-ball 44 kept them in the hunt. Mohammad Naim and Soumya Sarkar made 17 runs each while skipper Mahmudullah scored 31 runs from 24 balls to take the chase right down to the wire. However, West Indies just about managed to stop them from getting past the line with a collective bowling effort.

Top performers:

Nicholas Pooran: On a wicket where most batters struggled to find their rhythm, Pooran showed his class, scoring at a rate of 181.82 with four sixes and one four. His knock was quite crucial in helping his side post a total that could be defended on this track. In the end, Bangladesh lacked a Pooran-like knock.

Jason Holder: The all-rounder was brought into the squad after an injury to Obed McCoy and he responded in style with an all-rounder performance. His two sixes got his side to a better total than they would have expected. He bowled a spell of 1 for 22 in four overs and also plucked two crucial catches.

Achievements/records:

• Jason Holder completed 300 wickets across formats in international cricket.
• Roston Chase’s strike rate of 84.78 is the lowest for any West Indian batter in a T20I match with a min of 30 runs.

Way ahead:

West Indies will now face Sri Lanka on November 4 while Bangladesh will meet South Africa on November 2.