Darren Sammy forced James Faulkner to eat a humble pie, smashing him two sixes off two balls in the final over to lead West Indies to a pulsating six-wicket win over Australia in the ICC World Twenty20 in Dhaka on Friday. In the lead-up to the game, Faulkner hurt the ego of West Indies team saying he does not particularly like the men from the Caribbean and vowed to do it again what he once did with Chris Gayle, shouting at the batsman after dismissing him in a game.
Sammy promised to give a reply on the field but little did he know the destiny will give him a chance this way.
Faulkner did well enough in his first three overs to earn the faith of his skipper to bowl the final over with West Indies needing 12 runs for victory.
Sammy failed to score any runs from the first two balls leaving the West Indies players to hold their breath in the dugout. The third ball was a full toss which Sammy heaved for a six through the long-off bringing the contest alive again.
Sammy timed the next ball so well that he did not need to wait to see it flying for another six straight over the long-on. He threw his bat into the air and so did non-striking batsman Dwayne Bravo before rushing to their team-mates.
Gayle, who hardly shows any emotion in the cricket field, led the celebration with gangnam dance to revive the memory of last edition’s final in Colombo.
West Indies had made the Korean dance famous in the cricketing world through their celebration after winning the World Twenty20 trophy in Colombo and Friday’s win appeared to be equally satisfying for them.
Sammy won fittingly the man of the match award for his 13-balls 34, which not only sealed a thriller for them but gave them a perfect boost in their quest for title defence.
Australia, on the other hand, are now in danger of early exit having lost their opening two matches respectively to Pakistan and West Indies. The only way they can now survive is if Bangladesh can cause an upset or two.
The match was in Australia’s hands until the 19th over of West Indies innings, bowled by Michael Starc. Sammy took 19 runs from this over as West Indies brought the equation down from 31 off 12 balls to 12 off six balls.
Set a mammoth target after Australia posted 178-8, Gayle laid the foundation with 53 from 35 balls, an innings
that had clearly two parts with the first 30 runs coming from 11 balls, but West Indies middle-order nearly threw it away.
Lendl Simmons scored 26 from 24 balls and Marlon Samuels made 12 off 15 balls as Australia gained the control. Bravo provided the counter-punch to stay unbeaten on 27 from 12 balls before Sammy sealed the contest in an emphatic manner.
Barring the last two overs, the Australians did very little mistakes after winning the toss and opting to bat for a change from the tournament trend. The West Indies bowlers made regular breakthroughs but the Australians did not need to bother too much as their batsmen always maintained a high run-rate.
Glenn Maxwell scored highest 45 from 22 balls to take them to a total which was never going to be an easy target to knock off.
BRIEF SCORES
Australia 178-8 in 20 overs (G Maxwell 45, B Hodge 35, D Warner 20, B Haddin 15 not out; S Narine 2-19, M Samuels 2-20, S Badree 2-37) v West Indies 179-4 in 19.4 overs (C Gayle 53, D Sammy 34 not out, D Bravo 27 not out, L Simmons 26; M Starc 2-50)
Result: West Indies won by 6 wickets
Man of the Match: D Sammy (WI).
-With New Age input
