Shamik Das


Thursday, October 19, 2006

Windies Windies Windies! Oi, oi, oi!

At last, at long, long last, the Champions Trophy has come alive! What a spectacular end to the first round of matches, with the West Indies squeezing past the Aussies by ten runs.

The heroes for the defending champions were R.S. Morton - scorer of a fine unbeaten 90 - and Jerome Taylor, who became the first ever West Indian to take a ODI hat-trick, ending up with figures of 4-49.

Runako Shakur Morton smashes another four en-route to the man-of-the-match award    Jerome Taylor celebrating his history-making hat-trick

The West Indies win was all the more improbable given their pitiful nine wicket defeat to Sri Lanka in their last outing, in which only two batsmen reached double figures.

Of most significance from this result - certainly to English eyes - is the manner in which the World Champions disintegrated, collapsing from 182-4 to finish on 224-9.

England must surely hope to capitalise on the these new found psychological flaws when the teams resume hostilities on Saturday, especially the success of wise guy Chris Gayle's incessant sledging.

What was it Corporal Jones said? "They don't like it up 'em!" How true of the boys in baggy green who love to dish it out but just can't take it!!!

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Elsewhere, Pakistan put their recent troubles behind them to beat Sri Lanka by four wickets, New Zealand defeated South Africa by 87 runs and hosts India saw off England - winning a low-scoring contest by four wickets.

Finally, in what was probably the least meaningful cricket match ever played, Bangladesh avoided the wooden spoon by cantering to a 101 run victory over Zimbabwe, who remain rock bottom of world cricket.

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