The Manicou Report

Windies Celebrate (AP Photo)

Well the West Indies pulled it off. The batting wasn’t as great as we would have hoped. 241 on a short-boundaried Sabina Park was not very much to defend. However we did have a good innings from Samuels, Sarwan and a blazing 32 of 15 balls from Dwayne Smith (THE Dwayne Smith). The bowling though was inspired. Dwayne Smith (THE Dwayne Smith) ended with figures of 10 overs 3-36 and Bravo ended with 9 overs 3-42. Let me tell you something, if I had to face Bravo, I’d be terrified of the man’s bowling and fielding combo, because he was on fire yesterday. One of the best bowling stats in my opinion was that the Windies allowed only 4 extras. We all remember how things used to be in that department.

On the whole it was good to see the much maligned Dwayne Smith come good for a change as well as to see Marlon Samuels continue with his recent good form. I have to say though, that I was a little surprised at how tame Pakistan was. On the batting side of things, Shoaib Malik helped to put up a decent fight, but that looked almost like a solo campaign at times considering power batsmen like Mohammad “Danger Man” Yousuf and Inzamam-ul-Haq were playing it pretty safe.

I did start to get worried when the wicket fall remained at 3 for what seemed like hours and it didn’t help that Michael Holding was going on and on about how Brain Lara needed to change his bowling attack to include more spin. Lara, however, didn’t change it to spin, and Holding eventually shut up about it after Dwayne Smith claimed Mohammad Yousuf’s wicket.

Finally my own Summary: Batting – 5/10, Bowling – 8/10, Fielding – 8/10. Can we improve this and keep it going till the end?