By Neto Baptiste
Former West Indies fast bowler and coach, Kenneth Benjamin, believes the regional squad was some 20 runs short of what should have been a competitive total against South Africa in Sunday night’s rain-affected Super 8 clash in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.
West Indies were restricted to 135 for eight in their 20 overs with South Africa’s bowlers amassing a total of 57 dot balls. South Africa successfully chased a revised Duckworth-Lewis-Stern target of 123 in 90 deliveries.
“If I were to go back and do anything different is when the captain [Rovman Powell] went in [to bat], I would have sent Rutherford because of who was bowling and maybe that is the only thing I would have done. I don’t see anything wrong with the 11 that played but it just so happened that we faced 57 dot balls and that’s not good enough and what we don’t understand is that, aggressive batting, singles are a part of that,” he said.
Needing five runs off the final over, South Africa’s Marco Jansen hit Obed McCoy for six off the first ball of the final over to take his team over the line and quiet a lively crowd at the North Sound venue. The result eliminated the co-hosts from the tournament as the game in Antigua was a straight shootout to decide the other side to progress from Group 2. England had defeated USA earlier on Sunday to book the other spot.
Benjamin questioned the decision to bowl two of the better depth bowlers in the squad anticipating the contest could have been decided in the final over.
“The only thing I was a little bit disappointed with was when Alzarri and Russell got bowled out in consecutive overs. I would have saved one of them because at that time there were two new batters in and if I was going to bowl McCoy against, then is when I would have slipped him in, when Russell bowled out because it was always under six runs an over and if you’re going to bowl out Alzarri and Russell and yes, Chase came back and held it down for five balls but gave a boundary on the last ball but you knew that last over was going to be something. When I looked at who they had, and we say that Motie is our number one spinner, then I would have to die with Motie and not because he went for 20 [in his first over], these things happen,” the former player said.
Trista Stubbs top-scored for South Africa with 29 from 27 deliveries with Heinrich Klaasen adding 22 off 10 balls. Roston Chase was the best bowler for West Indies with three wickets for 12 runs in three overs. There were two wickets each for Andre Russell (2/19) and Alzarri Joseph (2/25).
Benjamin said that it was a hard loss but such is the nature of the game.
“Because T20 is so dynamic, it is not going to be who you play, what bowler you play, or what position somebody bats or if somebody is in a catching position, because the game is so dynamic that one ball, one over, one spell, one four or one dot ball could make the difference, and so, I cannot say that West Indies played badly or South Africa played well because it was just the dynamics. As you saw [Sundaynight], the game kept changing and this will happen in these types of games and especially when you are playing a lot of them,” he said.
Earlier, Chase top-scored with 52 off 42 balls for West Indies after they were asked to bat by South Africa. Kyle Mayers added 35 off 34 at the top of the order. Tabraiz Shamsi was the pick of the bowlers for the Proteas.
