SATIRE
Follow UsDot, dot, one, dot, dot and six off the first over of West Indies’ innings.
Nasser Hussain on air summed it up to perfection, “This over defines West Indies batting, plenty of dots with a maximum in the end”. If there is a motto that sums up the Caribbean side’s batting: Live by the sword, die by the sword would be it.
They have won two T20 World Cups with the same ethos. And now, in the 2021 edition of the T20 World Cup, they are losing the plot with the same. T20 cricket is fun, exhilarating and thrilling. But at the same time, it requires skills, it requires temperament to hold back when needed. Against England, West Indies neither lived by their skills nor did they show any signs of temperament.
Between Moeen Ali and Adil Rashid, they had six wickets, bowling 30 dot balls. If you are just looking at the scoreboard, you would imagine it was a dust bowl or a turning paradise. But believe me, it was none, there was spin on offer but not as much as the Windies batting made it seem like.
Going into the T20 World Cup, Kieron Pollard’s side had lost both of their warm-up games, against Pakistan and Afghanistan and a common theme was their batting. In neither of the two games did the batting side turn up and their struggle to rotate strike has been well documented. West Indies live and die by their play style: go big or go home.
Having been put to bat, they certainly chose the spicier of the two options: go home. At 8/0, none would have expected the Men in Maroon to get dismissed in the next hour. None, in fact, even skipper Kieron Pollard wouldn’t have hoped to walk out to bat in the eighth over of the innings. In between Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Lendl Simmons and Andre Russell, they have an experience of nearly 2000 T20 games. 
2000 T20 games, in varied conditions, varied bowling attacks, games of high pressure and yet, here we are, at 27/3. Evin Lewis, Lendl Simmons and Shimron Hetmyer all lived by the ethos and died by the very same. Hetmyer, in fact, was visibly distraught with his dismissal but little did he know, the entire team would emulate him.
The scoreboard, an hour later, despite boasting several in-form stars, multiple IPL winning stars, read 3, 6, 13, 9, 5, 1, 6, 0, 6, 0, 3. A little glance at the extras will show that it was the joint eight-highest run-scorer in the innings: that defines the innings. It wasn’t Sharjah, it wasn’t Chennai or it wasn’t a track that England know well, where the ball was moving like a magician’s wand.
It was a neutral venue, it was Dubai, where batting is possible. West Indies made it look like batting was impossible and every inch of the pitch was filled with minesweepers, that could blow up anytime they dead bat the ball. It wasn’t any of it. And every minute they batted, they didn’t make it any better. No, they didn’t!
But if you are an England fan, that saw the toss and was shocked at the last-minute injury to Mark Wood, you would be pleased. Maybe you wouldn’t be in Earth, Moon perhaps? Maybe you are already on your way outside Earth, trying to make sense of what was happening in Dubai. Looking at Moeen Ali open the bowling, your heart must have raced.
Looking at how Lendl Simmons smacked the ball off Ali’s bowling, you would have surely expected a carnage an hour later. Except not a carnage in favour of England. Cricket and T20 cricket, in particular is damn funny. A moment ago, you might be a superstar but it will only take a few seconds for you to turn into a villain.
Since the start of 2020, West Indies have the best balls/boundary ratio (5.2) but at the same time, they have played a high-percentage (45.5) of dot-balls against spinners. Today they went a step ahead, they played 30 dot balls and yet somehow, found mysterious ways to lose six wickets to spin. Rashid’s spell at the end of the innings read, 4-2, an economy rate of 0.85, that’s outrageous.
West Indies scored 55 runs, which is also the third-lowest total in T20 World Cup. 31/4, that they posted in the powerplay was also the most wickets that they have ever lost in the powerplay (non-curtailed matches). For England and Rashid, it was his best spell in T20 cricket, 4/2, something that he would take any day of the week, and on a Saturday, he did take it more than with two hands.
As rightly pointed out by Freddie Wilde and Ben Jones in CricViz’s Podcast of the Super 12s, Windies are a fun side to watch in T20 cricket, this entire T20 World Cup is built around the phenomenon that they might do a Michael Jordan and do the ‘Last Dance’. If today’s play was an indicator of their brand of cricket, they might very well be at the wrong side of the Last Dance.
At the start of play, Criclytics gave West Indies a 46% chance of winning the encounter but over the course of the innings, the side from the Caribbean was adamant that they would turn into one figure, at 4%. They might be the defending champions, they might have won the competition twice but the constant pace at which the format is growing, if you don’t adapt yourselves, you are leaving yourself in the mouth of a crocodile.
And sadly, the crocodile of cricket, T20 cricket, doesn’t care whether the Windies are defending champions or are led by Kieron Pollard, if they are not up to the mark, it will clamp down and move on.
“In affectionate remembrance of Windies Cricket, which died in Dubai on 23rd October 2021. Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing friends and acquaintances. R.I.P and the body will be cremated and dumped somewhere between Dubai and Jamaica.”
*Please note that parts of this article are satirical just like West Indies’ T20 approach in the clash against England
