In a light-affected match played at Providence stadium, Guyana, providence played a cruel game on West Indies, costing them the first ODI in the most incredulous fashion. West Indies’ coach John Dyson made a painful faux pas when he called the batsmen in when they were 2 runs short of the Duckworth Lewis target, conceding England a shock victory by 1 run. It seems almost unbelievable that someone could make such a terrible mistake. Of course now the question is whether it was a mistake at all.
When the news of the win sunk in to the Englanders, it induced wild celebrations, irrespective of the circumstances of their win. But they had played some good cricket through the day. After winning the toss and opting to bat first, the visitors produced a solid 270 on a surface that wasn’t too friendly. After losing Strauss’ wicket early, half centuries by Owais Shah (62) and Paul Collingwood (69) kept the team going. Shah, who didn’t have a good run in the series so far, brought up his 50 from 67 balls. By the 37th over, their partnership had gone over 90 runs and looked strong, when a rain interruption doused the momentum. Shah lost his wicket to Dwayne Bravo shortly after play restarted, Mascarenhas fell in the very next over, and England were left struggling to regain control. But Matt Prior, coming in at number 7 managed to give them that, as he added a few quick runs in the last overs.
When West Indies came out to bat, they had a target of 246 runs from 46.2 overs. They lost Gayle’s wicket in the 2nd over itself, but what followed after was a 125 run partnership between Simmons and Ramnaresh Sarwan that balanced the game. What really tipped the match in West Indies’ favour was the blast of runs from Shivnarine Chanderpaul that almost took the game out of England’s hand. He slammed 26 runs in Harmison’s 7th over, and totalled 46 runs in 30 balls. But credit goes to Broad for scalping his wicket. The fate of the match was still undecided when Pollard (42) fell, but after Ramdin’s wicket the hosts needed 27 off 22 balls. They were at 244 when Dyson called the players back in, convinced they had won, only to realise later that his mistake had cost them the match.
