West Indies’ disappointing World T20 2021 campaign came to an emotional end on Saturday afternoon, as the defending champs bid adieu to two of their biggest stars in the shortest format.
Sadly, the men-in-maroon couldn’t end their campaign with one final hurrah over Australia, their arch-rivals from the yesteryears. But even barring the result, the match had its fair share of action and entertainment; so much so to ensure that Chris Gayle and Dwayne Bravo- two of Windies’ longest-serving servants of the game- had one memorable farewell match.
Dwayne Bravo gets rattled by a shot off Kieron Pollard’s bat
Bravo, for one, had a particularly close call with a powerful shot coming right off the middle of Kieron Pollard’s bat. Mitch Marsh was bowling the 15th over of West Indies’ innings, and for his fourth delivery, Marsh lobbed a quick, fullish-length delivery towards Pollard. The West-Indies captain clobbered the ball onto the leg-side of the ground; but in the process, Bravo, his batting partner, was rattled at the non-striker’s end by the sheer power of the shot!
The Champion all-rounder showed great reflexes in avoiding the fast-flying ball and avoided a potentially dangerous injury. But it was quite comical to see the usually calm-and-collected Bravo jump off the ground in fear of getting hit by the ball. What was even funnier was that Bravo actually dropped his bat, and yet the batting pair managed to complete a quick run.
Even Pollard seemed amused, as was evident from the cheeky smile he had on his face when he walked up to return the bat to DJ Bravo. Here’s the video covering all the commotion that ensued on-field during this one particular delivery.
— Simran (@CowCorner9) November 6, 2021
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Match Summary
Incidentally, Pollard did manage to connect a few more balls off the middle of his bat, and it was thanks to his pyrotechnics that West Indies managed to register 157/7 on the board. Josh Hazlewood came back strongly after conceding 19-runs in his first over, and ended his spell at 4-0-39-4.
Coming to the second-innings, West Indies did manage to make an inroad early into the Australian counter-attack by picking up the prized wicket of captain Aaron Finch. However, an on-song David Warner (89* off 56) and Mitch Marsh (53 off 32) ensured that there were no hiccups in the chase, and picked up 2 crucial points to seal their berth for the semi-finals. West Indies had just two wicket-takers in the form of Akeal Hossein (1/29) and Chris Gayle (1/7), who managed to register an extremely clutch feat of picking up a wicket in the final ball of his international career.
Brief Scores: Australia 161/ 2 (D Warner 89*, M Marsh 53, C Gayle 1/7) beat West Indies 157/7 (K Pollard 44, E Lewis 29, J Hazlewood 4/39) by 8-wickets.