Chris Gayle's words come true in the Zimbabwe series

Well the world would not have forgotten the West Indies' captain - Chris Gayle's words when he was found predicting a 4-1 victory for his team ahead of the 5 match one day series that they played last month. This no doubt would have obviously made some people laugh and other ignore Gayle's words. However, Chris Gayle's words were found coming true in the 5 match one day series against Zimbabwe when his team crushed Zimbabwe by a 4-1 margin yesterday after West Indies won the fifth one dayer by 4 wickets. This was the third 4 wicket victory that the West Indies had in this tournament.

The 4-1 victory prediction that Gayle had predicted ahead of the West Indies - Australia bilateral series didn't even turn out to be 1-4 in favor of the West Indies and moreover, it would have been a 5-0 loss had the third one dayer been taken off smoothly which finally had to be abandoned. Anyways, if the series between the West Indies and Zimbabwe is considered, though it would not have been a great guess for anyone who'd have bet on the West Indies, the converse also had an equal share, taking into account their poor performance since the retirement of the bowling trio Ambrose-Walsh-Bishop a decade ago.

Added to that was the fact that West Indies lost the only T20 game earlier where they failed to even chase down 105 runs and then in the first one dayer at Guyana West Indies lost the game by 2 runs which added another unwanted feather in their cap. And though since that game the West Indies have never dared to look back, the victory was hardly enough to silence all even a little bit of critics. It was only the Kingston one dayer which the West Indies won by 141 runs that could draw some appreciation. And, when it comes to the remaining three matches, if not for the win, no other way can anyone be convinced with the performance of the West Indies team.

Being the home team and having a last laugh against a non testing team against Zimbabwe speaks for itself about the caliber the West Indies team have in them off late. Chasing a target of just above 150 or 200 should have seen them lose not more than 3 wickets or at the most 5 wickets. So should have been the overs they needed to go past the Zimbabwean total which saw them crawl upto the late 40s to reach the target. If a team like the West Indies has such a bad fate, one can think of another Zimbabwe when no one bets on the West Indies. If the cricketing world loses a test team like the WI, there would be just 6 teams playing decent cricket with Bangladesh & WI crashing out.

How long will the satisfaction last for WI?

Well one has to pity the present day's West Indies team which finds relief after winning the second one day match against Zimbabwe. One has to think whether it was Australia whom the West Indies defeated or was it really Zimbabwe? The moment a team rejoices after winning a match against some team like Bangladesh or Zimbabwe, its caliber is well know to the cricketing world. And, moreover the West indies team finds relief not before it lost the first one day international and the only T20 game that was played prior to that to the same Zimbabwean team. Also, this victory was at home for the Windies.

The same West Indies team was found to have lost or rather being whitewashed by the Bangladesh team somewhere 7 months ago which was any team's first ever test match series defeat at the hands of Bangladesh team and West Indies being the home team then added to their woes. Now, if one sees the West Indies team rejoicing after their victory against Zimbabwe it can be considered that the West Indies team and the fans would have anticipated them to lose the game and the series as well to the Zimbabweans. And, their actions are justified with the absence of some key players like Dwayne Bravo.

This was a hard fought victory for the West Indies, which at one stage saw then reeling with 85 runs on the board at the end of the 26^th over at a run rate of just over 3.0 an over. And moreover, at that stage, the West Indies team had lost 4 quick and top wickets. It would not have been possible without the experienced Chris Gayle and Deonarine who held the nerves and didn't lose more than 2 wickets after their initial debacle which saw West Indies through that game against Zimbabwe. It is now only history that West Indies boasted a batsman in Brian Lara who scored 400* in test cricket.

And, when the West Indies can boast of their victory against Zimbabwe which was a hard fought one, questions do raise about the future of the West Indies in the ongoing series against the same. Can West Indies win atleast two of the remaining three one dayers against Zimbabwe to avoid another disappointment in case they don't succeed in doing so? The target that they chased down was a mere 208 runs and that could draw in a lot of applause which was not the case when they chased down 418 runs in test cricket against Australia some 6 odd years back.

6 Ducks from the winning side

Well West Indies' loss in the recently concluded ODI series and the T20 series against Australia can well be justified for, West Indies is a far worse outfit compared to Australia who are not at their one time best. Moreover, West Indies were facing Australia in Australia where forget about winning, even a matured loss would be a great feeling for the West Indies team. But, now in the first T20 game against Zimbabwe at Port of Spain, where West Indies were expected to win for one last time, it was fascinating to see West Indies playing the T20 game as though it was a test match.

All that the West Indies team can feel comfortable about is the fact that there was a West Indian bowler in Darren Sammy who bagged 5 Zimbabwean wickets, returning with figures of 5/26 from the 4 overs allotted to him. Can anyone of us imagine even in our dreams a team ending its innings of a T20 game with not only putting up a partly score of 79 but also at a strike rate of just above 3.0 runs an over? In the recently concluded India-South Africa 2 match test series, both the teams out there had atleast one innings wherein the team had scored at a rate of above 4.0 runs an over.

It was Dwayne Smith placed at number 7 in the batting order who recorded the highest strike rate in the match at 80 runs for every 100 deliveries he faced. And the highest run getter in the match for the West Indies team happened to be Denesh Ramdin who scored 23 runs no matter how many deliveries he faced. There were only 3 batsmen from the West Indies' side who could put up individual scores above 10, with extras taking its share of 10 runs. One thing that can be noticed for the West Indies' bowling chart is that the WI captain bought in just 5 of his bowlers who bowled their quota of 4 over each.

And on the other side, the Zimbabwean side bought in 8 of their bowlers, may be which is not of much importance when it comes to winning matches. But, the idea to experiment when things are not going in favor is always a welcome move from the captain. At the end, one thing that is worth to be noted is that there were 7 batsmen from the Zimbabwean side who returned back to the pavilion the way they entered into the crease. Out of these 7 batsmen who couldn't score a run, 6 of them were out. Another interesting fact is that Benn had 4 wickets, all of whom returned without scoring. I guess that this is the 1^st such instance where ducks have made headlines.