Cricket Blog

Post updated with match highlights

Upset #2 in as many days. West Indies are out of the tournament, despite some heavy batting performance. This time it was upset-favorite Bangladesh. After a shock win in the 50 over edition early this year, Bangladesh has sent the Windies back home, to where they belong. West Indies, who had started very well in their practice game, have had two shockers with the ball. Agreed, their batsmen were superb. But, if you can’t defend 200+ in a 20 over match then there seems to be some problem. And that problem was well exploited by Bangladesh.

Set a target of 165, Mohammad Ashraful and Aftab Ahmed played superb knocks of 61 and 62 respectively. Ashraful was at his destructive best, smashing 61 in only 27 balls. His 50 came off only 20 balls, including 7 fours and 3 sizes, and that really set the stage for the 5 wicket win. Aftab Ahmed remained unbeaten and had faced 49 balls.

Earlier, West Indies were asked to bat first. Chris Gayle, the centurion in the opening match, was out for a duck. It’s really funny how one day you can be a hero and the next day a zero, quite literally speaking in his case. From here on the West Indies never really got going. Despite a 95 run partnership between Devon Smith and Chanderpaul, the West Indies could only get to 164. And all thanks to a blinder from the other Smith in the team, Dwayne. Smashing 29 from only 7 balls, Dwayne hammered 4 big ones to help the West Indies reach a very defendable total.

Shakib Al Hasan grabbed 4 wickets from his 4 overs as he ripped through the middle order. Even Ashraful got a wicket, although he went for a hammering, no thanks to Dwayne Smith. But the skipper more than made up for his poor bowling with some of the best batting so far in the tournament and rightly deserved the man of the match award. with the West Indies now packing their bags, and Australia also on the verge of an early exit, this is looking like the same old story of the World Cup 2007. This time, however, if India and Pakistan make it through to the next round, the advertisers and the ICC would be pretty pleased.

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