T20 World Cup: Windies' muscle power in vain
KOLKATA: A few years after the first edition of the T20 World Cup was organised in 2007, West Indies single handedly changed the face of the game with their sheer brute power. They taught the world the best way to play the format. Their preference to go aerial and deal in boundaries caught up with other teams when they lifted the crown for the second time in India almost 10 years ago.
As other teams with England, South Africa and India being the prominent ones to follow the path, the Caribbean side keeps evolving, continuing to be a force to reckon with, especially in the marquee event. No matter how they perform in the bilaterals and other two formats, they look threatening every time they feature in the T20 World Cup. And the 2026 edition being co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka became a testament to it.
They were far from the best when they arrived to be part of their favourite event but stormed into the Super Eights by winning all the four Group C games. The match against South Africa was a reality check for them but they didn't give up their gung-ho approach despite being seven down with the scoreboard reading below 90 in the match.
In all their matches so far, they were slow to start with the scoring rate dropping further at the Eden Gardens. But they made sure they accumulate as many runs as possible in the middle overs (between 7 and 16) to always end up posting an above-par total when batting first. Sunday was no different as they muscled their way to 149/4 after being 45 for no loss in the powerplay.
Despite the co-hosts saving their premium pacer Jasprit Bumrah and wicket-taking spinner Varun Chakaravarthy to keep a check on them in that phase of the game, Shai Hope and Co gathered 104 runs. More importantly, at one stage they were 69/1 after nine overs but plundered 80 runs in the next seven overs with over No 10, 11 and 16 yielding them 13, 17 and 24 runs, respectively.
This show in the middle overs was their third-best in the tournament after 139/1 against Zimbabwe at the Wankhede Stadium and 107/3 against Scotland at the same venue. They finally ended up with 195/4 after 20 overs - score that can be termed above-par - thanks to their power-hitting in the middle overs.
The only regret they might have of not finishing it the way they would have liked to. And that's where they seem to be lagging a bit in this edition. They managed 46 runs in the final overs (between 17 and 20) on Sunday and on most occasions they ended up scoring at the same rate during the event.
Against Scotland in their opener at the Eden Gardens, they scored 42/2 in the last four overs. They improved it to 54/1 against England in Mumbai. Their match against Italy in Kolkata also saw them scoring 48/1. The Zimbabwe match gave them their biggest score in the final four overs as they hammered 60/3.
Interestingly, they accumulated 47/1 against South Africa even when the chips were down. In their must-win contest against India, they had to content with 46 runs — one run less than what they managed against the Proteas. The two-time champions can only think what if they had managed a couple of additional boundaries in the last 24 balls as that could have taken their total beyond 200-run mark — a total always considered formidable especially in a do-or-die match.