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Bitter experience is the best teacher. I know. Ever since Jason Holder’s West Indians unaccountably turned the tables on England at Headingley in 2017, I hate the taste of Brylcreem.
And yet, here we go: I will eat my hat if Rovman Powell’s West Indies do not emerge victorious in the five-match T20I series against England which ends at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Tarouba on Thursday.
Powell scored 107 runs.
(Copyright CWI Media)
The margin? Doh try dat! I not goin there. But I am willing to bet a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue against a bottle of Blue Waters that the home side will bounce back from that completely demotivating cutarse in Grenada last week.
It takes some doing to make 223 runs in a T20 game and lose. It takes some doing to hit 16 sixes in a single T20 innings and lose. It takes some doing to have 20-plus runs to play with at the start of the last over of a T20 game and lose.
Harry Brook is not a 36-year-old past-his-best Moeen Ali. He is not a big, strong Carlos Brathwaite either; he is a seriously talented batsman.
So it took some doing to imagine that lightning would strike in the same place on Saturday as on Thursday. And to imagine that if there were deliveries there for the taking, Brook or Phil Salt or whoever the English batsman on strike happened to be would again miss out and fail to take advantage.
Photo: Associated Press
Hindsight? Yes. But not in the sense in which people are likely to mean it. It’s hindsight in the sense that we should have learned from what we saw towards the end of Game 2.
With 31 needed off the last two overs, Jason Holder produced a miserly over #19, leaving the recalled Andre Russell—man-of-the-match in game 1, no less—all of 28 runs to play with.
But ask Nicholas Pooran who had the best seat in the house to make the assessment. The two consecutive deliveries that Moeen missed in over #20 could oh so easily have yielded 12 runs. And WI won by 10!
I don’t think the way Pooran threw his head back after Moeen’s misses was merely because he thought the batsman could have got an edge. He could have middle it!
(Copyright Daniel Prentice/ Wired868)
But either the former skipper forgot all about it in the euphoria of Thursday’s win. Or he failed to remind the current skipper of it after England had progressed to 107 without loss after 10 overs.
He should have said to Powell: “Skip, I hope you not leaving DreRuss for the death.” It’s what I said out loud to myself at the break.
I was in no doubt that Salt, the in-form opener, was in assault mode and his skipper at the other end was carving up the bowling more like a butcher than a Buttler.
The game was arguably lost between overs #10 and #15. Hosein conceded 10 from the tenth over, following Gudakesh Motie’s miserly five in the ninth. That was the moment, I thought, to slip in a Russell over. Instead, Powell used up Motie’s third. It cost four runs.
Some will argue that scoreboard pressure after that parsimonious over earned Buttler’s scalp for Russell. In the event, he allowed the new batsman just one run off the last four balls. Perhaps. But it left the all-rounder with two of the last eight to bowl and Motie with just one.
Which Powell opts to use up immediately. Unwisely, I thought. Seven to go, Motie and Hosein bowled out. More importantly, the unthreatening Russell has two.
(Copyright Daniel Prentice/ Wired868)
With Livingstone, the new batsman on strike, the skipper calls up Holder instead of Russell, whose two completed overs have brought him one for 14 at this stage.
In the next three overs, Holder (#14), Alzarri Joseph (#15) and Russell (#16) each give up a single six, leaving England still needing almost three runs per ball off the last four. Two sixes in Joseph’s second-last over reduce the deficit to 51 but that is still a tough ask.
The key question for Powell at this stage is who bowls #19. Holder was sooooooo good in the second match. But Powell makes the right decision. He chooses Joseph.
Photo: Daniel Prentice/ Wired868
The secondary question is this: Holder or Russell at the death? In my view, the question should have been Holder or Motie?
Now it is entirely possible that, bowling #20 with five men on the boundary, Motie is given the same harsh treatment meted out to Russell. After all, off his first over, the last one in the powerplay, Salt and Buttler had taken 18, including two sixes and a four.
On the evidence, it would be a major surprise. How often is he taken for consecutive sixes? Multiple sixes?
At right is West Indies bowler Andre Russell.
Photo: Getty Images
So if the finger-spinner is given 20-plus runs to defend in Tarouba today or Thursday and fails so to do, I would not enjoy my hair-seasoned meal. But I would not feel hard done by.
However, if, in either game, Pooran allows Powell again to save the 35-year-old recalled allrounder for last. I shall pull every last strand of my hair out.
And if, once this series is done and dusted, we shall have to turn sharpen the focus on Messrs Desmond Haynes, Roland Butcher and Daren Sammy.
(Copyright SW Londoner)
Despite all that has been said about age over the last month, for Games 4 and 5, they just called up the soon-to-be-35-year-old Johnson Charles. Hardly a stellar performer with a bright future ahead of him.
Should we then be surprised if they extend to the long-serving, injury-prone veteran whose effective age far exceeds his calendar age an invitation to continue
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