 The last chance for West Indies has arrived. Having not won a single game
on the tour so far, the West Indian side will look to make it at least one match
under their kitty, as they meet Australia in the second T20I of the series
at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Conversely, out of the six Test matches, 10 ODIs and two T20Is that the Aussies
have played in the summer, they have drawn only one Test, and there was a case
of one abandoned ODI which means that another win here would give them a 100%
no-loss record this summer back home - one of their best in recent times.
Click Here to Watch Australia vs West Indies Live The script for the first T20I went in almost similar manner as it had throughout
the summer. There was a strong start from Shane Watson, there was a middle
order collapse-of-sorts with a chance that the West Indian side would be able
to claw back, but a strong hitting down the order which sent the total for the
Australian side to well beyond what the West Indian side could manage.
If the West Indian issues were not already a lot, they had had to contend with
the pace of Shaun Tait in the first T20I who was able to regularly rip
through the deliveries at the pace of 150kmph plus. This meant that the West
Indian top-order in Chris Gayle, Lendl Simmons and Narsingh Deonarine were as
quickly back into the pavilion as they had arrived. By the time the recovery
came, the game was all over bar the shouting.
The West Indian side will have to contend with the pace of Tait and the guile
of Dirk Nannes in the second T20I as well. Not that Nannes does not possess
the pace to ruffle the batsman, but what makes him doubly effective is that
he swings the ball at that speed and makes it doubly difficult for the batsmen
to score the runs.
The West Indian bowlers had performed well in the middle portion of the innings
as they got rid of the middle order for virtually nothing at all; 83/1 became
129/6 off almost 16 overs, which meant that the tourists had a chance of getting
the Aussies out for around 145. As it turned out, the out of form Brad Haddin
stuck gold with a 16-ball 37 that knocked the stuffing out of the West Indian
winds and none, except for Kieron Pollard and Nikita Miller did anything
of note.
For the tourists to make any kind of a foray into winning the second game,
it will need them to bat much much better than this.
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