Garth Wattley In Port of Spain
A sellout crowd of 20,000 left the Queen’s Park Oval happy and satisfied as their West Indies team surged to a seven wicket victory over Sri Lanka to clinch the three-match Digicel One-day International series with a game to spare.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul repeated his superb effort of the first ODI, with 52 not out (42 balls, three fours, two sixes). He fashioned an unbroken fourth wicket partnership of 107 off just 90 balls with the equally outstanding Marlon Samuels (54, 49 balls, three fours, three sixes) as the West Indies chased down a revised Duckworth/Lewis target of 125. They won with 4.3 overs to spare.
The fans who waited through two stoppages for rain that limited Sri Lanka to 30 overs and three balls and left the Windies with a maximum 25 overs to bat, were treated to a
spectacular display of shot-making from two very different players. It was the final spoiling of the T&T posse.
Yesterday made it a clean sweep of Test and one-day games for the Windies at the Oval this season.
Gayle and his squad will leave here today for St Lucia for the final ODI on Tuesday with their confidence sky high and their reputations as a team on the rise, enhancing day by day.
Samuels certainly boosted his stocks with a timely command performance.
He played throughout the two Test matches and three ODIs with misconduct proceedings concerning his alleged association with an Indian bookmaker still not concluded. But yesterday, West Indies’s top batsman on the tour of South Africa, who had managed a mere 25 runs in five innings this international season, finally stroked his way out of his slump.There were shouts of ecstasy all around when, with Chaminda Vaas coming back into the attack with the Windies in trouble at 22 for three, “Sammy” stretched forward and drove imperiously to the long-off boundary.
It was the kind of confidence-boosting moment that he needed. The kind which finally allowed him to go on and repay his skipper, and coach John Dyson for the faith they had shown in his talent.
It was Chanderpaul though, who really broke the game open.
Nuwan Kulasekara had created panic in the ranks when he removed Dwayne Bravo (opening the innings), Gayle and Ramnaresh Sarwan with just 18 runs on the board.
Gayle and Sarwan were caught at mid-on and adjudged lbw off the first and fifth balls of the sixth over, Kulaeskara’s third; while Bravo was bowled off-stump by a sharp off-cutter in the fourth. The brisk fast medium Sri Lankan was proving himself a handful.
But the Oval had faith in their last-ball-six hero from Thursday.
And in the ninth over, it was déjà vu time.
Having survived an appeal for caught behind to medium pacer Kaushalya Weeraratne, “Tiger” Chanderpaul bared his fangs.
Bang, bang, bang!: Pulling and swinging sweetly to the boundary and over the fence, charging Chanderpaul lashed a four, a six and another four in the over to boost the sagging run rate.
The Windies did not look back thereafter.
Next over, Kulasekara was tamed too, by another fluent Chanderpaul swing which cleared the midwicket boundary. Samuels too had the crowd bawling with his three sixes, the last of which off Sri Lanka’s new spin marvel Ajantha Mendis, was lofted into the second tier of the CL Financial Stand at long-off. By the end of that 19th over, West Indies needed just 13 to win. A game set up by the bowlers and the rain was almost won.
But perhaps it was Gayle who made the first big move of the match.
For the third time in a row in Tests and ODIs, he won the toss for the West Indies. And again for the third time at the Oval, he asked Sri Lanka to bat first.
The heavily overcast conditions made his decision a straightforward one. And before the second of the rain breaks forced the eventual termination of the Sri Lankan innings, the visitors struggled to get going.
Opener Upul Tharanga took 82 balls to make 40 (five fours). Repeatedly, he missed desperate attempts to drive at Daren Powell (7-0-21-0) and the troublesome Jerome Taylor (6-2-10-1) before eventually, Taylor took a well judged catch running to his left at third man as Tharanga slashed at Bravo.
His dismissal in the 23rd over left the Sri Lanka total on 78 for two.
Tharanga’s opening partner, Mahela Udawatte was already back in the pavilion. Bowled without scoring by Fidel Edwards on his ODI debut on Thursday, he got to 14 (three fours) before, with the score on 38 in the ninth over, he skied a slash at Taylor and Sewnarine Chattergoon—one of three changes made by West Indies—held the catch one handed in the cover point region.
With the Windies playing four seamers, with Powell coming into the side for left-arm spinner Sulieman Benn, there were not many easy hits to be had. Even such a normally free and accomplished scorer as Kumar Sangakkara was never able to flow.
It took him 51 balls to get to 28. Only two boundaries did he manage before he became the first of two victims for fifth bowler Gayle in the space of nine balls.
Attempting to sweep, Sangakkara top-edged a catch to Sarwan at short third man in the 29th over to leave Sri Lanka on 105 for three.
Sangakkara left pinch hitter Weeraratne at the crease. Such was Jayawardene’s concern about the run rate and the weather, that he had demoted himself one spot.
But Weeraratne had his struggles too—15 off 20 balls. And in the next over from Sammy, the big left-hander failed to pick a slower ball which he drove to Bravo at backward point.
Then in what turned out to be the 31st and final over, Chamara Silva was bowled, yorked virtually, by the Windies skipper:112 for five.
Down came the rain with Sri Lanka on the ropes.
Man-of-the-Match Chanderpaul and Samuels made sure they stayed there.
