Sarwan sees Windies to first win

A dead match this may have been, but with Bangladesh’s successes so far, it could well have been an exciting contest. It was not to be though; West Indies triumphed by 99 runs as both teams put out performances with the bat they should be disappointed with.

West Indies were put into bat first and made a start that defined sedate. They were pegged back early on by the Bangladeshi opening bowlers, Mashrafe Mortaza and Syed Rasel. They kept impeccable lines and lengths, and found the odd bit of bounce or movement to have the batsmen in trouble. They soon grabbed a wicket apiece, Mashrafe cleaning up Devon Smith and Rasel trapping the horribly out-of-form Chris Gayle lbw for one.

Marlon Samuels and Shivnarine Chanderpaul did something to rebuild the innings with no further loss. They added 47, but that took them 17 overs before Saqibul Hasan induced an edge from Samuels on the spin-friendly surface.

Ramnaresh Sarwan’s appearance at the crease added some impetus, and their 16-over partnership with Chanderpaul yielded 81, of which Sarwan made 46. Sarwan took a little while to get going, but began to look in good touch, striking some crisp boundaries, as Chanderpaul was still unable to tick along as regularly as perhaps he should have.

Shortly after reaching a half-century, Chanderpaul was bowled trying to accelerate things with an ugly swipe at Aftab Ahmed’s medium pace. This brought Brian Lara in, who struck a handy cameo, 33 from 27 balls. A couple of beautiful shots were seen, as Rasel proved expensive on his return to the attack, but Lara drove Abdul Razzak straight to cover in the 47th over.

Sarwan meanwhile, boosted West Indies to 230. He was able to find the boundaries and to run hard, despite struggles with exhaustion, but he did get a reprieve when Rudi Koertzen declined to even ask for the TV replay of a run out that proved to be out. Sarwan finished unbeaten on 91, by far the biggest contribution to a total that was frankly under-par.

Bangladesh would have fancied their chances of chasing down 231, but they struggled with the bounce of the Barbados wicket. Corey Collymore induced an edge in the first over, but Brian Lara shelled the catch at slip. Tamim didn’t hang around for too much longer however, a mix-up with Javed Omar ran him out.

Collymore, bowling very well, added two wickets of his own. Aftab Ahmed and Saqibul Hasan both edged to Ramdin, making no mistake on either occasion. The game was beginning to slip away from Bangladesh, and was all but over as a contest after Daren Powell struck. Both Mohammad Ashraful and Javed Omar were beaten by his bounce, Ashraful pulling high to square leg, and Omar edging to slip.

The score was 35-5, with the last two recognised batsmen in. Powell struck again to remove Habibul Bashar, and West Indies were into the bowlers. They weren’t able to wrap it up as quickly as they might have liked though. Mashrafe Mortaza struck 37 in a partnership of 58 with Mushfiqur Rahim. Rahim himself finished unbeaten on 38, after the tail folded to Gayle and Bravo.

It was a disappointing end to the World Cup for Bangladesh, and again West Indies were poor with the bat. Hopefully they can give their home crowd something to remember against England, in what will be Brian Lara’s last ever ODI.

West Indies 230-5
Ramnaresh Sarwan 91*, Shivnarine Chanderpaul 50

Bangladesh 131 all out
Mushfiqur Rahim 38*, Mashrafe Mortaza 37
Daren Powell 3-38, Corey Collymore 2-11

West Indies win by 99 runs

Cricket Web Man of the Match : Ramnaresh Sarwan