Hope, Shamar steer Maroon Men past Italy—Zimbabwe, here come the West Indies

So far, so good.

Skipper Shai Hope starred with the bat and pacer Shamar Joseph with the ball as West Indies brushed aside potential party-poopers Italy by 42 runs at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Thursday.

The comfortable win gave the Daren Sammy-coached Maroon Men four wins from their four group stage matches in the 2026 T20 World Cup and confirmed their place at the top of Group C.

With no context, bowling the opposition out for a mere 123 after posting a modest 165 might sound impressive. But it was far from being the kind of championship performance likely to put the fear of God into Zimbabwe, South Africa and India.

WI will now line up against these three in the Super Eight stage, which kicks off on Saturday with New Zealand meeting Pakistan in Group 2 in Colombo. West Indies open against Zimbabwe in Group 1 in the Wankhede on Monday.

Hope, who serves as opening batsman and wicketkeeper in addition to his leadership responsibilities, did impress in leading from the front.

The selectors eschewed the option of having him sit out a—in the big picture—meaningless fixture, with qualification for the next stage already assured.

Once in the XI, Hope might also have chosen to come in lower down the order, so as to give himself a longer rest and give an alternate opener some time in the middle. Just in case…

He, however, also nixed that option, showing no signs of either mental or physical fatigue—racing to 50 off his first 28 balls and eventually top-scoring with 75 off 46 balls.

Hope eventually claimed the Man-of-the-Match award, but with career-best T20 match figures of 4-0-30-4, Joseph (S) made it a close-run thing.

At 54 for 3 at the end of the seventh over, Shamar was the last of the five bowlers used to be pressed into service. By then, he had already caught opener Anthony Mosca and his replacement Zain Naqvi off Akeal Hosein and Matthew Forde respectively.

He made an immediate impact with ball in hand, having Italian captain Harry Manenti caught behind with his fifth ball.

Returning to the outfield, he snaffled JJ Smuts on the square-leg boundary to leave the Italians on 78 for 5, needing to more than double their score with half the side already down.

Re-introduced at 94 for 5 in the 15th over, he forced Grant Stewart to hole out to Jason Holder at long-off, again with his fifth ball. Then, not wanting to be predictable, he sent back Thomas Draca and Ali Hasan with balls 4 and 6 of his last over to end the innings.

Given first strike, WI started shakily, losing Brandon King (4 off 6 balls) and the in-form Shimron Hetmyer (1 off 4) in the second and fifth overs respectively, to reach 48 for 2 at the end of the powerplay.

At the other end, Hope (6 x 4, 4 x 6) looked untroubled, repeatedly dispatching short or off-line deliveries for boundaries.

Nothing changed when Roston Chase joined him—elegant drives and powerful pulls at one end, successful survival at the other, including a skier dropped by Justin Mosca running back from extra when Chase was on 19.

The partnership was broken at 95 for 3 when a Chase pull landed in the safe hands of Benjamin Manenti at deep midwicket.

Manenti opened with the left-arm spin of Smuts and opted for Ali Hasan’s seam stuff at the other end. When a few overs of medium pace from Thomas Draca and Grant Stewart failed to yield the desired results, he turned to all spin.

Eventually, both his off-breaks and the leg-spin of Crishan Kalugamage (4-0-25-2) would account for eight overs and four of the six wickets to fall while Smuts also used his full quota of four, conceding 27 runs but going wicketless.

The Manenti mix did seem to throw the West Indian rhythm off kilter. The upshot was that, in the first ten overs, with the exception of Hope, no other batsman cleared or even reached the boundary.

Indeed, after the Hope/Chase 64-run stand, the only other partnerships of note, 22 and 27, came between Sherfane Rutherford (24 not out, 2 x 4, 1 x 6) and Jason Holder (9 off 7, 1x 6) and Rutherford and Forde (16* off 8, 3 x 4), which added 50 runs off the last five overs to push the total beyond 150.

Having crossed 150 against England and overhauled Nepal’s 123 without losing any wickets, Italy would have fancied their chances of notching a historic win.

But Forde (4-0-19-3) and Hosein (4-0-25-1), the West Indies’ opening bowlers, set them back on their heels early and they never really recovered.

Forde bowled Mosca between bat and pad with a beauty in his first over after Hope had failed to hold on to edge off the fifth ball of Hosein’s first over. And he induced a false shot from Naqvi in the last over of the powerplay to put the Italians on the backfoot.

Successive partnerships of 20, 21 and 25 got them past the 100 mark but the task looked progressively beyond them.

Hope had the luxury of not utilizing Hosein’s full quota of four overs and not needing to call on the off-spin of Chase on a ground where that variety, used against right-handers, is more than likely to travel.

From 103 for six when Holder caught Stewart at long-off off Gudakesh Motie, Italy subsided to be all out for 123.

And so the West Indies ended the preliminaries with eight points, one of three teams in Group X to do so.

Fortunately, for Sammy’s men, the other two, India and South Africa square off in the first round while the Maroon Men take on surprise qualifiers Zimbabwe.

The Zimbabweans also topped their first phase group, scoring an unexpected six-wicket win over Sri Lanka in their last round match-up.

Asked how it feels to reach the Super Eights and what are the prospects for going beyond, Hope responded to the post-match interviewer with a smile and the non-answer that he was happy that his team is in the next stage and they are just going to take it one game at a time.

Will Monday’s first step be a stumble, a baby step or a giant step?

So far, so good. For the moment, the Daren Sammy 2016 repeat dream lives on.

More from Wired868

Best: A lifetime contract for KKR’s Sunil Narine but a Moruga bush bath for LSG’s Nicky P…

West Indians, were you watching the second Kolkata Knight Riders and Lucknow Super Giants thriller? With two ex-Maroon Men, Sunil Read more

Early Bird: Did ‘unfair’ ICC top themselves with muddled WI travel arrangements?

There aren’t too many cricketing things that give my morning walk partner Bobby more pleasure than a West Indies victory. Read more

Early Bird: India favoured to retain title after WI bowlers fail to hit their straps

It is over. Amen. With a little luck, West Indies might have featured in this week’s semifinals of the T20 Read more

Early Bird: Sammy’s Maroon Men need a miracle after South Africa mash WI up

In India, cricket is a religion; few, if any, would dispute that. So with West Indies now seeking salvation in Read more

Can Motie-vated WI make their own luck vs South Africa?

If West Indies prepare just as well for their next two Super Eights matches—and if their luck holds!—the 2026 T20 Read more

Nepal swept aside, dreamer Sammy works West Indies into a Carnival Sunday frenzy

Columnist Earl Best imagines himself a fly on the wall in the West Indies dressing room in Mumbai: “Reckless!” As Read more

Earl Best

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.