Half way around the world in a hot bed of emergent international cricket – the city of Dhaka in the nation of Bangladesh, hosts of the 2016 ICC Under19 World Cup, it was Valentine’s Day – Sunday February 14th the most iconic day on the calendar indicative of the manifestation of love in the realm of the romantic, but there was no love lost between the underdog youth of the West Indies and the prohibitive favorites India as they battled in the final for the coveted trophy and bragging rights for the next two years as the best young team on the planet.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, it was in the waning hours of Saturday February 13th at about 10 pm when the match got underway and it was barely so when India, offered first strike by inspired skipper Shimron Hetmyer, lost their captain Rishbabh Pant to a bizarre stumping by the alert Tevin Imlach on the fourth ball of the innings. It was this dismissal that set the tone for the veritable meltdown of the Indian juggernaut that saw the team sink to 50 for 5 and all out for 145 in 45.1 overs under the weight of the withering pace attack of Alzarri Joseph and Chemar Holder reminiscent of the legend of Andy Roberts and Michael Holding.
And by the time the West Indies had painstakingly slayed the Bengal tiger with sheer grit and determination and reached 146 for 5 with a mere three balls to spare, Valentine’s Day had dawned in the West Indies and North America and it is safe to say that half of the Caribbean and many thousands in the diaspora got up from their TV sets and computers ecstatic but tired and bleary-eyed and mentally worn from worry, that ball after ball, over after over from a desperate, guileful, and miserly Indian attack, that this team inexperienced, with no body of work, seemingly struggling at 77 for 5 in the 29th over, could come close and
