West Indies win their first match in Group D

Following a deflating defeat in the preliminaries against India, the West Indies rebounded well to secure a good victory today against Pakistan in the first ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 match at a refurbished Sabina park Jamaica.  The stands were packed with throngs of home fans who were more than happy to cheer the Windies home to victory.

The West Indies posted a competitive though very achievable 241/9 from 50 overs. The highlights of their innings was a good 63 by Marlon Samuels who in a partnership with Brian Lara took the side from 77/3 to 168/4.  Fifteen runs and 2 wickets later a collapse seemed on the cards but a cameo appearance by Dwayne Smith (32) helped the team to muster up 57 off the last 5 overs to take the run rate to over four and a half. A relatively low rate on a pitch that bounced and turned a little but certainly favoured batsmen.

While their batting proved to be just sufficient, particularly attractive about the team today were their accuracy with the ball and sharpness in the field. In the batting arena, the soft dismissals of Gayle, Chanderpaul and Sarwan were too familiar. Sarwan was lucky to have been dropped by Younis Khan in the slips after playing a rash shot to the first delivery he faced. As the familiar saying goes, "Great players are known to make fielding sides pay" if they are given a lucky chance early in their innings. Sarwan was dismissed 49 runs later, caught in the same position, by 'Khan' playing an equally poor stroke.

Pakistan never really got going with the bat and lost their first wicket with only six runs on the board and had lost three before the score had gotten to forty. While Yousuf Mohammad and Captain Inzamam-ul-Haq stemmed the loss of wickets for another 18 overs, they scored at just over 3 runs an over and when they were dismissed within 5 overs of each other, the pressure on the lower half of the line-up seemed to a bit too much. They were eventually all dismissed in the forty-eigth over, 54 runs short of the target.

Man of the Match:  DR Smith (caption) - Batting 32 runs from 15 balls; Bowling 10 overs 36 runs 3 wickets.

Most Important: Windies secured a victory when it mattered.

Quote: "the guys are confident" ... "its all about a team effort"...."we must give credit to our supporters"  . D. Bravo

See the score card at Cric Info