Srikrishnan Chandrasekaran
West Indies started off the ODI series in a winning note against Bangladesh with a 40 run margin in the first ODI. West Indies openers played cautiously and had all wickets intact after the first 15 ove’s. Samuels joined Simmons and they built a strong foundation for the West Indies. Simmons scored his first century in ODIs and carried his innings till 40th over. Pollard with his recent CTL20 form came in at the right time to play his big shots. His quick fireworks propelled West Indies to a total close to 300.
After threatening to get to three figures all year long, Simmons finally got there on Thursday
Bangladesh had a bad day in the field where they dropped catches and missed run out chances. West Indies bowlers did a very good job by picking wickets at regular intervals during 2nd half of the Bangladesh innings. Bangladesh looked firm but failed to capitalize during the batting power play that firmly tilted the game in West Indies’ favour. Shakib played a fighting innings and gave some hope for the hosts in the match. He has transformed himself into a very good middle order batsmen and in the crunch often delivers for the tigers.
This series is really going to be a big challenge for the West Indies team as the current team has not played much cricket in sub continental conditions. Bangladesh will hope to bounce back quickly and give a good fight to West Indies. The Bangladesh coach and think tank should think of promoting Shakib to No.3 or No.4 position which will give more freedom for Shakib to play a big innings which in turn will bring good results for the team. Bangladesh will look to square the series in the next ODI.
It might be a lowly contest when put into context their ODI rankings and the winner of this series will remain ahead of the loser in the rankings. West Indies is not even a shadow if its great sides and problems still galore between its star players and the board. It is hardly the best West Indies team one can think of putting together. But, like we have seen. they put one across England in a T20 game a few weeks ago. And they still produce some good talent. Hopefully, there are better days ahead for them.
The CouchExpert 