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Former West Indies white ball captains Kieron Pollard and Nicholas Pooran showed off their power-hitting to excellent effect in The Hundred in England. But good tings, as another former West Indies captain might say, come in trees.
So is it too much to expect current West Indies white ball captain Rovman Powell to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors? Will he too treat us to something special—if not in the Hundred, more importantly, in the three T20Is his WI play against Aidan Markram’s South Africa at the Brian Lara Academy later this month?
To be fair, we should really expect it in the regional white ball competition which bowls off in Antigua on 29 August.
With no Jamaica-based franchise in this year’s tournament, Powell leads the Barbados Royals. For West Indian company, he will have the veteran Jason Holder and the rookie Alick Athanaze along with the seasoned Rahkeem Cornwall and Obed McCoy.
Also likely to be in the Royals line-up when they open their season against the Antigua and Barbuda Falcons on 1 September are three high-profile South Africans in Quinton de Kock, David Miller and Keshav Maharaj.
If you haven’t been following, both Pollard and Pooran last weekend delivered match-winning performances for their teams. Playing for Northern Superchargers against Manchester Originals at Old Trafford on Sunday, Pooran powered his way to an unbeaten 66 off 33 balls to see his team home.
(Copyright IPL 2020)
As if intent on poohpoohing my recent suggestion that awareness of a team’s six-hitting ability is of little relevance in a white-ball game, Pooran started slowly, scoring only two off his first nine balls. But when anything less would have meant near certain defeat for the Superchargers, he clobbered two fours and eight sixes—including one that travelled all of 113 metres!
After Pooran and skipper Harry Brook (43 off 26 balls) added 56 off 32 balls to kick the innings into gear, Brook fell to the 68th ball. And 68 were still needed with only 32 balls available.
With 20 balls left, the left-hander had progressed to 38 off 25 and the Superchargers still needed 49. Twenty-three came off the next ten, leaving just ten balls to be bowled. Afghanistan’s Fazalhaq Farooqi, who had been so impressive in the World Cup, had conceded only two runs off his first ten balls before conceding 13 off #12 to #15.
The record does not show whether at that stage Pooran told himself or his partner: “We are a six-hitting team.” But in his post-match interview, Brook commented that “[h]e knows he can hit them for sixes so many people can learn a massive lesson from that innings.”
What the record does show is that Pooran declined the run on offer off Farooqi’s fourth ball, #94. Off ball #96, however, he took a single, letting his partner have the strike for ball #97. The Superchargers needed only four off the last five. Pooran had dispatched #91 for four and #92, #93 and #95 for six.
In his post-match interview, Brook called Pooran “one of the best players in the world” and described his innings “phenomenal”.
“These West Indians,” he went on, “as we saw with Pollard the other day against Rashid Khan, […] are so powerful.”
(Copyright AFP Photo/ Jewel Samad)
At the Rose Bowl in Southampton on Saturday, Pollard helped his Southern Brave get to their challenging 127 target with just one ball to spare. But the delight is in the details.
Along with Garry Sobers, remember, the one-time West Indies finisher is one of only two West Indians and just a handful of batsmen who have hit six sixes in a six-ball over. Already recognised as one of the short format’s most formidable power-hitters, Pollard added his name to the short list (which also included India’s Ravi Shastri and Yuvraj Singh and South Africa’s Herschelle Gibbs) in Antigua in 2021. Sri Lanka’s Akila Dananjaya was the unfortunate bowler.
But on Sunday, it was an Afghan whom Pollard, like Pooran, chose for punishment this time around.
Photo: Nicholas Bhajan/ Wired868
The Afghan captain’s Trent Rockets set Pollard’s Southern Brave a target of 127 and, in his first 15 balls, Rashid was miserly, sending back Andre Fletcher and conceding a mere 10 runs.
Pollard said he knew “the sorts of lines and lengths he is gonna bowl and just backed myself”.
With 20 balls left, Pollard’s Brave, like Pooran’s Superchargers, needed 49 runs. At that stage, did Pollard hear Pooran’s “we are a six-hitting team” mantra in his head? Who knows?
Unlike Pooran, however, the finisher did not leave it quite as late.
Suddenly, it rained sixes. Five on the spin. Over cow corner, over long-off, over the bowler’s head, over deep midwicket and over long-off. Rashid’s decent 1/10 figures read 1/40 an over later.
All of a sudden, just 19 were needed off 15 balls.
Pollard’s Man-of-the-Match 45, with two fours and five sixes, came off 23 balls. When he was run out by a direct throw from cover, a-run-a-ball nine were needed. No challenge for the Barbados-born pair of Jofra Archer and Chris Jordan.
The two in-form Trini destroyers again line up with the Trinbago Knight Riders in this year’s CPL. They begin their campaign in Antigua on Independence Day so Kyle Mayers’ St Kitts and Nevis Patriots—who have South Africa’s Rilee Rossouw in their ranks—are likely to have a job on their hands to keep their heads above water.
The date for the clash between Pollard’s team and Powell’s Royals is 13 September. Those with long memories will not have forgotten that the Bajans were originally led by the hard-hitting Trini, so that there is usually no love lost between the two sides.
Powell’s 67 T20I innings have so far yielded 1,414 runs with a single century and six half-centuries. For the year so far, his highest T20I score has been 63 against Australia in February, his only 2024 half-century, and, in the Hundred, 21.
If, perish the thought, he disappoints against the Proteas this month, he could hardly choose a better time to produce his best form than 13 September.
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Earl Best taught cricket, French, football and Spanish at QRC for many years and has written consistently for the Tapia and the Trinidad and Tobago Review since the 1970’s.
He is also a former sports editor at the Trinidad Guardian and the Trinidad Express and is now a senior lecturer in Journalism at COSTAATT.
