WEST INDIES’ FAILURE to reach today’s final of the Tri-Nation One-Day International series in Zimbabwe might appear a simple stroke of weather-related bad luck. However, the reality is a little more uncomfortable.
Having squandered winning positions in their previous two matches – tying one and losing the other by just one run – against the hosts and then Sri Lanka, defeat by five runs on the Duckworth/Lewis Method to the Zimbabweans in the final preliminary fixture in Bulawayo on Friday should have been inconsequential.
That it became a must-win fixture, one in which the elements intervened even as Jason Holder attempted to get his side ahead of the required run-rate while Jonathan Carter struggled to get the ball away, was the result of their inability to close out the two previous games when well placed. It was a timely reminder that claiming the advantage is only really meaningful when a team can formalise the contest in their favour.
After the thrashings endured in the three ODIs against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates nearly two months earlier, when prominent senior players subsequently made public the unsettled nature of that squad (at least from their perspectives), should we at least take solace in the competitiveness of this reconstituted team? No, because that would be in essence admitting that the players aren’t capable of too much better, which is quite far from the truth.
Shai Hope acknowledged after the West Indies choked their way to a tie two Saturdays ago that he should have kept his wicket intact and taken his team home after completing a maiden hundred. At least he was honest enough to admit that. Still, at 220 for three when he departed in the 45th over, with 37 runs required off 32 deliveries, it seemed the remaining batsmen put pressure on themselves, as well as the Zimbabweans bowled at the death.
Even at the final over bowled by seamer Donald Tiripano, the visitors would still have been favoured with four runs needed and Holder and Carlos Brathwaite at the crease. Yet only three runs were scrambled, the run out of Carter off the last ball of the match triggering scenes of unrestrained celebration among the spectators at the Queen’s Club ground to confirm that the tie felt more like a Zimbabwean win. It did.
Then, as if to reinforce the questionable temperament in crunch time, the West Indies did it again four days later against the Sri Lankans, losing by the narrowest of margins after Evin Lewis’ maiden ODI hundred had set them well on the way to successfully chasing a target in excess of 300 for the first time ever in this format of the game.
His dismissal in the 41st over, run out for 148, left the regional side needing another 69 runs off 54 balls with four wickets in hand. A stiffer requirement against a more experienced team, yet it boiled down to ten off the last over bowled by medium-pacer Nuwan Pradeep and three off the final delivery. As against Zimbabwe, Holder was the man on strike at that critical moment but could not make the telling blow.
West Indies nevertheless appeared to have put the double disappointment behind them for the last of the preliminary matches, spinners Devendra Bishoo and Ashley Nurse leaving the hosts in ruins at 89 for seven by the 26th over batting first. But the West Indies could not polish off the innings, middle-order batsman Sikandar Raza’s unbeaten 76 the highlight of the resistance as he added 38 with Tiripano and an even more impressive 91 unbroken with Tendai Chisoro.
A target of 219 off 49 overs still seemed well within West Indies’ range. Chisoro’s left-arm spinners accounted for both openers, though, and the batting side laboured to gain any sort of scoring momentum, losing wickets just when they might have been able to accelerate. Given his earlier experiences, it should have been no surprise that Holder was again in the middle with showers imminent and his team behind the required rate.
His best efforts proved insufficient again and by the time rain drove the players off for the last time the West Indies, at 124 for five in the 28th over, were five runs away from making the final.
“We lacked the killer instinct,” said Holder after the match, a comment that could have been applied to their three matches following the comfortable 62-run opening win over Sri Lanka. There seemed a tinge of despair as well in his reference to “trying to do my best for this team”.
Coming off the back of the UAE experience, the repetitiveness of these setbacks would be especially galling for a captain who is only 25, but must feel at least ten years older since accepting the thankless task nearly two years ago.
Fazeer Mohammed is a regional cricket journalist and broadcaster who has been covering the game at all levels since 1987.
