BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - THE West Indies Cricket Team completed a white-wash over Bangladesh with a 91-run defeat in a one-sided encounter yesterday (Aug. 25), which saw more records tumbling at Warner Park, St. Kitts.
After winning the toss, West Indies Captain Dwayne Bravo chose to bat first in front of a fairly-big crowd at Warner Park, and struggled early-on in their innings.
The home-side lost Lendl Simmons and Chris Gayle early and were left struggling on 12-2 but was rescued thanks to another record that tumbled at Warner Park as Dinesh Ramdin and Darren Bravo put together the highest third wicket partnership in ODIs with a stand of 258.
The partnership also yielded 19 sixes - the most by West Indies in an ODI - as both batsmen reached to their century and pushed the West Indian score beyond 300.
Darren Bravo finished with a career best of 124 while Ramdin got to his best of 169 as the West Indies posted a 339 target.
Al-Amin Hossain provided the Bangladeshi’s only hope by collecting four wickets for 59 runs.
In response, the Bangladeshi innings got off to the worst possible start by losing Anamul Haque in the first over and Imrul Kayes in the second over, thanks to a brilliant one-handed catch by Kemar Roach off the bowling of Ravi Rampaul.
Bangladesh also found a resistive third wicket stand with Tamim Iqbal and Captain Mushfiqur Rahim who put together a 99-run partnership to frustrate the home side.
The visitors however struggled to keep up with the required run rate and started losing wickets at regular intervals owing to a brilliant second spell from Rampaul who finished the game with 4 wickets for 29 runs to lead the West Indies bowling charge.
Rahim top scored in the visitors’ innings with 72 as his side finished on 247-8 off their allotted 50 overs.
Denesh Ramdin’s 169 earned him the Man of the Match award and hailed the partnership between him and Darren Bravo.
“Dwayne (Bravo) said he needed someone to bat through the innings and I put my hand up. Darren helped me get there and rotate the strike and hit some boundaries on the way. Bangladesh's seamers bowled well early, then Darren took over and then finally I took over to look for quick runs.”
Mushfiqur Rahim, Bangladesh’s Captain, thought his team bowled well early on, but thought the target was too much for his side.
“I thought they were too good on the day. There is a lot of work to be done before the T20 as we need to come up with some good plans for these short boundaries and big hitters. “
Both teams will be in action again on Wednesday (Aug 27) in a T20 International at the same venue.
