The article speaks about India's victory over West Indies in the World Cup Match at Perth on 5th March, 2015, the day of holi. India were best in batting, bowling and fielding.

The India versus West Indies match in Waca Stadium in Perth became another one sided match. It was played on 6th March and India won the match convincingly by 4 wickets.

 

West Indies won the toss and elected to bat first. They messed up with start again. Smith never appeared to be of any form in the last three matches. He chased a swinging delivery of Mohammad Shami outside the offstump and got caught behind by Dhoni after scoring 6 runs of balls. West Indies has to go another strategy.

With failures of Smith coming one after the other, West Indies should open the batting with some one else, it can be Simmons or Samuels or whoever.

 

After that the run out that took place between Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels will make the cricketers of gully cricket shameful. Chris Gayle pulled a ball which could have been a catch. Samuels from non-striker end ran all the way, and tried to return back. Gayle did not run at all. Samuels sacrificed his wicket. Gayle might have been a hard hitter and contributed with more than 8000 one day runs. But his running between the wickets is dismal. It can choke the batting line up in modern day cricket.

 

After West Indies struggling with loss of 2 wickets, the decision of Gayle to go for wild slogshots really made everyone astonished. He was seeing the ball for 8 overs. Shami and Umesh Yadav were about to complete their spell of bowling. Gayle should have been patient for another 3 to 4 overs and waited for Indian spinners to operate. He went for another wild shot and got out caught by Mohit Sharma of the bowling of Mohammad Shami after scoring 21 runs of 27 balls. He hit 2 boundaries and an over boundary.

 

West Indies lost the match in the first 10 overs altogether. After that the rest of the match was a just a time pass.

 

Indian fast bowlers had held on to their line and did a great job. Mohammad Shami and Umesh Yadav were successful to keep Gayle in the backfoot. With their short deliveries both of them did not give Gayle any room to free his arms. In this entire world cup Shami and Umesh Yadav consistently bowled about 142 kilometers per hour. Where they ended Mohit Sharma began. He also bowled around 138 to 140 kilometers per hour and bowled with a beautiful line. Ramdin came at no. 5 and played a dismal shot and got played on the ball hitting the stumps in the ball of Umesh Yadav. He scored a duck at the crisis stage.

 

There was not one single West Indian batsman who could stay on one side and play out 50 overs. Carter and Sammy tried to spend time in the crease but their techniques were inadequate. Only Holder showed some resistence with 57 runs in 64 balls. His 4 boundaries and 3 over-boundaries gave West Indies some respectable score of 182 runs. Otherwise West Indies was not in a position to score even 150 runs.

 

Mohammad Shami was the best of the Indian bowlers capturing 3 wickets for 35 runs in his 8 overs. Umesh Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja took 2 wickets each. Mohit Sharma and Ashwin took 1 wicket each.

 

In reply India did not start well. Rohit Sharma was dismissed for 7 runs while Shikhar Dhawan made 9 runs. But Virat Kohli played a wonderful innings in the bouncy wicket of Perth. He scored 33 runs of 36 balls with 5 fours. He should have stayed for a longer period. Ajinkya Rahane and Suresh Raina were not very comfortable with short pitched deliveries and were dismissed for 14 and 22 runs respectively. Dhoni came in at that time and steadied the ship. He remained unbeaten on 45 runs. He played 56 balls and hit 3 boundaries and an over-boundary. As the West Indian total was small, it did not matter that India lost 6 wickets. Ultimately Ashwin was also unbeaten with 16 runs of 32 balls.

 

For West Indies the bowlers were incapable of utilizing the bounce of Waca ground. Taylor and Russell took 2 wickets each and showed some purpose. Holder and Roach just bowled out their overs.

 

India had planned their games according to the strength of the other teams. In the pool matches, India’s fast bowlers had been the best of the lot, with Shami, Umesh Yadav and Mohit Sharma bowling to their own strength and bowling in the areas of weaknesses of opponent batsmen. Captainship of Dhoni had been excellent in all the matches. India played to a plan and came out victorious in all the matches.

 

It was very sad to see West Indies in such a deplorable condition. They should have brought Pollard and Bravo along with the team.

 

It is very hard to believe that a formiddable side of the strength of West Indies had degenerated to such an extent. The West Indian fast bowlers in the 1980s, like Michael Holding, Malcalm Marshall, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts, and others used to be considered the best in the history of cricket. The attacking nature of batsmen of West Indies like Sir Vivian Richards, Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Clive Loyad, Carl Hooper, Gus Logie, Jeffery Dujon, created fear in the minds of bowlers of opponent countries.

 

West Indies hardly lost matches during the late 1970s to 1980s. They went to the World Cup finals 3 times in 1975, 1979, 1983, and won the title twice. From that stage, today neither West Indian bowlers rank among the first 20 bowlers in World cricket. Other than Gayle, none of the batsmen rank in the first 20 batsmen in the world.

 

The good thing about India is that the players had not become complacent after winning all the first 3 matches and leading the group. India requires a planned performance in the quarter finals. It is because India will play teams from the other side of the pool.