Even though the present West Indies team may be far away from Caribbean squad of the 1970s in terms of performance, its players have got their calibre and talent acknowledged by the whole world in the shortest cricket format.
That West Indies became world champion twice in this format is enough to explain its talent. West Indies cricketers are making their presence felt in the different cricket leagues of the world.
These days, the talent of Caribbean players’ is on display in the ongoing IPL being played in UAE. In this season of the IPL, there are 12 players from West Indies, of whom Chris Gayle, Keemo Paul, Jason Holder, Sherfane Rutherford and Oshane Thomas are yet to get into playing XI. Most of the seven players, who have got the chance to play, are in Kings XI Punjab, where three players are performing extraordinarily well. Of these three, Nicholas Pooran and Sheldon Cottrell are very impressive. Cottrell is known not only for his superb swing in this IPL, but he has won the trust of the team.
At the same time, Nicholas Pooran has won the hearts of everyone by playing an inning of 77 off 37 balls against Sunrisers Hyderabad. But he did not get company of the batsman at the other end. Chris Gayle is out of Kings XI Punjab playing squad as he is not fully fit. Delhi Capitals’ Shimron Hetmyar is a high calibre batsman and also a class fielder. Swooping on the ball and catching it has become a habit with him.
His score of 45 runs off 24 balls against Rajasthan Royals turned out to be a match winning innings. KKR’s Andre Russell and Sunil Narine are the strength of the team. Both of them have changed their roles. Russell, who was known for fiery knocks, has proved to be a baller controlling batsman’s run rate in the death overs. Whereas Sunil Narine is spelling magic with his fingers and wreaking havoc through off-spins while not being able to do anything remarkable with his bat.
Chennai Super Kings trusts in the all-round game of Dwayne Bravo. Particularly, his economic bowling proved to be useful for the team.
Kieron Pollard of Mumbai Indians is such a batsman who is quite consistent. He has scored more than 80 runs in the last five overs, sometimes in partnership with Ishan Kishan and sometimes with Hardik Pandya. He is a big support for the Mumbai Indian team in death overs. He has also acquired more maturity in his batting.
Remember the 16th over of the match against SRH when he played five dot balls in that over of Rashid Khan. Actually, he knew that this was the last over of Rashid Khan and he would get a good opportunity to score after that. That’s exactly what happened.
Rest of West Indian players are waiting for their turn in the IPL teams. Really, a lot of talent of West Indies has come up to see in T-20 cricket. All the cricket leagues of the world are incomplete without these players. Let’s hope that West Indies is able to win the T-20 world cup despite its various shortcomings and difficulties.