Brian Lara backed his team to rebound from adversity and hit the nail on the head when West Indies began their World Cup in the best possible way yesterday.
Dwayne Smith, Marlon Samuels and Ramnaresh Sarwan all endured troubling circumstances going into the competition but turned their games inside out with match ,winning performances as West Indies turned back Pakistan by 55 runs in game one.
A record 15, 573 Sabina Park crowd gave boisterous support that also inspired dazzling fielding performances which was the main difference between the two teams in perfect conditions.
Samuels, shrugged off his investigation of links to an Indian bookmaker to lead the way with an explosive top-score of 63 from 70 balls that setup West Indies’ eventual winning score of 241.
Pakistan then came out worst in the strangulation stakes created by bowlers of both teams, who made the first game of the World Cup 2007 one dominated by them.
The 1992 champions capitulated for 187 to end a sequence of One Day International wins over West Indies that stood at 6-1 coming into this game and spanning competitions in the last two years.
West Indies have earned the trademark for inconsistency in almost all aspects of the game.
This time around they were hottest in the field led by the indomitable Dwayne Bravo, who pulled off two breathtaking catches. In general, West Indies were so athletic they transformed the lush outfield into a green diving arena as they kept the Pakistani batsmen in check with spectacular efforts, even from those not known for making the turf their friend.
One such effort by Chris Gayle (not the happiest of movers on the field) which eventually was ruled a boundary for a rope infringement, typified West Indies’ brilliance.
Smith, who was made a whipping boy by the critics for his non-production with the bat, showed he was made of stronger stuff and `stuffed the verbals’ with an epic all-round display that earned him the Man-of-the-Match award.
He hit a whirlwind cameo of an innings, 32 off only 15 balls that allowed the hosts to savage Pakistan’s attack for 73 runs in the last nine overs.
Then, given the ball first change, he went on to rip away the heart of the opposition’s batting, ending with three wickets for 36 runs with his medium pace.
Darrel Powell justified the selectors’ decision to include him ahead of the dropped Ian Bradshaw, bagging 2-42 in a long spell of sustained pace that lasted all of 10 overs after Pakistan won the toss and fielded.
Every man given the ball played the part in suffocating Pakistan as Bravo grabbed 3-42, Jerome Taylor 1-38 and Corey Collymore 1-37.
For the first time in many moons Lara had no use for his spinners as Gayle and Samuels were not required to twirl their off-spinners and had to be content with excelling in the outfield.
Shoaib Malik upstaged his illustrious batting team-mates and was the lone Pakistan batsman to show stomach for the fight lashing a top-score 62 off 54 balls with six fours and one towering six.
A 60-run stand between captain Inzamam ul Haq and Mohamed Yusuf was all Pakistan had to show after they never got it right from the first over.
Powell sent back Imran Nazir for six and Taylor followed up by removing Mohamed Hafeez shortly afterwards.
As the crowd kept the noise momentum rising with a brass band, party stand music and thunder sticks among the mix, West Indies confidently rode the momentum home to victory.
Bravo caused the decibels to rise higher than the humongous George Headley stand and the even more massive new grand stand opposite was expected to generate, when he dived low to his right to pluck the ball out of mid air for the play of the day to send back Kamran Akmal for nought off Smith.
The Trinidadian then iced the cake by holding a left hander blinder off a fierce drive from Iftikhar Rao to send the crowd delirious.
Earlier, the West Indies made a nervous start after Pakistan won the toss and inserted the hosts.
Whether Chris Gayle is enduring a rough patch or the opposition from Asia have worked him out, only time will tell, but from all appearances it seems the latter.
In his last six months or so, the once feared `Gayle Force’ has become not so much a `Spent Force’ but a `Mild Breeze’, as he has been dismissed the same way all along.
The Indians failed him throughout the One-Day series and it seems that Pakistan have learnt a thing or two from their neighbours.
This time he fell for two, lbw off Omar Gul who ended with 2-38.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul laboured throughout his innings and if it were a tactic for him to anchor the innings, it failed. Instead of giving him the freedom to push the scoring, especially with the restricted field-placing, it resulted in a another stunted innings in which he needed 63 balls to make 19.
Chanderpaul can do much better attacking, as he is one of the most fearsome attackers when he is instructed or is in the mood to attack .
Samuels took the opposite approach to Chanderpaul and reaped the benefits, hammering five fours and three sixes to shrug off his recent problems. He wasted little time in asserting his dominance over the attack, nonchalantly lifting Rana over his head for a straight six early in the knock to stamp his authority on the proceedings.
And, as soon after the loose balls started coming West Indies were on a roll. Lara joined in the act, putting away Hafeez for a six and a four in one over in his contribution of 37 off 56 balls after Gul and Naved ul Hasan started pulling the strings early for Pakistan.
Samuels’s approach is the oldest tactic in the book especially on good batting pitches, but it is overlooked by some teams more often than is believable.
He also employed another basic necessity of the game that gave him the confidence to notch his best ever World Cup score.
He used his feet with aplomb, going down the pitch to the spinners that won him the battle in the end over Danish Kaneria and Mohamed Hafeez as his stats proved.
Sarwan, who was also a target for the critics, benifited from a positive approach too, and although he was dropped first ball, fortune favoured the brave in his case as he hit a near run-a-minute 49 that was more important than the statistic suggested.
It paved the way and settled the nerves of a first ever World Cup hosting, for Samuels and company to follow.
And with Clive Lloyd, who was honoured before the game along with the first two West Indies’ winning world Cup teams in the West Indies’ technical team, the winning
habit seems to have rubbed off on his charges.
The inconsistencies, if only for yesterday, seemed a problem of the past.
