West Indies in semis; England crash out by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

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Scorecard:	England v West Indies
Player:	RR Sarwan, S Chanderpaul, DJ Bravo, RS Bopara, KP Pietersen
Event:	ICC World Twenty20 2009

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DateLine: 15th June 2009

 

England’s dreams of making the Twenty20 World Cup semi-finals were shattered in 8.2 two overs as the West Indies, chasing down a pretty steep 80 runs of nine overs, came back strongly from an indifferent beginning to rush in the penultimate round.

 

Ramnaresh Sarwan scored a collected 19 runs of nine balls, including two consecutive boundaries off Stuart Broad, to tilt the balance in the Caribbeans’ favour after England at one time looked like running through the batting.

 

Sarwan’s 37-run unbeaten stand with Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who scored 17 off 10 balls, made sure that the West Indies won pretty comfortably at the end. England thought they had it under control, and for the first half of the short innings, that was true.

 

Opener Andre Fletcher failed once again, and after Chris Gayle had carted a few to the fence, Ryan Sidebottom sent a searing yorker through his defences, England were in the driver’s seat.

 

Lendl Simmons slashed the first ball from Broad down third-man’s fence, and at 16/3 off 2.1 overs, things looked really good for England.

 

Spinners Graeme Swann and Adil Rashid got into the action, and though Kieron Pollard and Dwayne Bravo did get a six apiece, the spinners had the last laugh, as Rashid took care of Pollard and then Bravo fell to Swann.

 

However, the 18 runs Bravo scored, along with the two wickets he got, were their weight in gold.

 

But that is where the game changed. At 45/5 off 5.2 overs, things were pretty keenly poised. That brought together Chanderpaul and Sarwan.

 

The amount of experience they share is enormous and they played sensibly, never letting the bowlers get through and scored with deceptive ease, whittling down the asking rate so rapidly that by the time Sidebottom bowled the last over, they needed just three runs, which they sorted out off two balls.

 

The English batting effort revolved around the fine half-century scored by Bopara and his stand with Kevin Pietersen, which wielded 56 runs for the second wicket after Wright had gone cheaply again.

 

Bopara played with a lot of poise and elegance, as opposed to the power cricket from Pietersen. The opener found gaps well and the England batsmen, right through the innings.

 

But Pietersen went when he was looking really good, off the innocuous stuff from Simmons, hoisting one to be held at the mid-wicket fence.

 

In fact, most of the batters went when they had gotten past the initial stages. Owais Shah got to 15 before going and Collingwood scored 11 before he departed, as did James Foster, after scoring 13 runs.

 

England’s lack of big hitter in the middle-order, as they went in without Dimitri Mascarenhas, was pretty evident as they hardly ever found the fence in the last quarter of their innings, which also saw a rain interruption.

 

In fact, it was only off the last two balls off the innings that they got to the ropes, with Broad hitting a four and a six off Suleiman Benn.

 

The West Indies bowling was steady, though the fielding left a lot to desire, as they continued to misfield with gay abandon, as they had been doing throughout the tournament.