Nigeria Content Online

Dwayne
Bravo’s injury could well turn out to be a veiled blessing for a West
Indies team which had to dump their original strategy for one which
recognised spinners’ enhanced role in the World Cup. Coach Ottis Gibson
has admitted that losing paceman Bravo last week through a knee injury
has upset the team’s original strategy built around the talismanic
player and fellow all-rounders Darren Sammy and Kieron Pollard.

“With him missing,
it gives us an opportunity to perhaps re-think whether we need another
batsman at six and perhaps an extra bowler,” Gibson said before
Monday’s match against the Netherlands.

“Hopefully, the
next team will reflect our new thinking.” This conspicuous shift in
strategy for a team which based its 1975 and 1979 Cup-winning sides on
its long-standing pace heritage is a direct result of Bravo’s injury
and no wonder Gibson preferred to call it an “opportunity”.

Mirroring the “new
thinking”, Pollard was promoted in the batting order, senior players
like Chris Gayle were asked to shoulder more responsibility and more
emphasis was put on the slow bowlers by drafting in left-arm spinner
Nikita Miller for the 215-run win against the Dutch.

They also decided
to fly in uncapped Guyanese leg-spinner Devendra Bishoo as Bravo’s
replacement, realising a thin spin resource would seriously compromise
any bowling attack on the subcontinent’s dust bowls.

Augur well

All these augur
well for a side that is out to convince the sceptics that the West
Indies are not past their pomp and that it is premature to group them
with the whipping boys of international cricket — such as the non-test
playing Dutch. The manner of the victory was as significant as the
margin and West Indies went into the match with a specific plan their
upstart Dutch opponents had no answer to. Not even Kemar Roach’s
sensational six-wicket haul, including the 2011 World Cup’s first
hat-trick to wrap up the Netherlands’ innings, is likely to sway the
West Indies’ new-found belief in the spinners’ enhanced role. Gayle’s
batting philosophy was a revelation as the left-hander allowed Devon
Smith to dominate their century partnership, a rare restraint from a
man who otherwise loathes playing second fiddle. Pollard’s promotion in
the batting order also paid dividends with the all-rounder celebrating
it with a 27-ball 60 that took them past the 300-mark. The team also
placed faith in Sulieman Benn, opening the attack with the spinner — a
ploy which was a novelty in 1992 when New Zealand captain Martin Crowe
tried it but commonplace in this tournament. In contrast, the
Netherlands will be wondering what went wrong after a near fairytale
outing against England last Tuesday which they only lost with eight
balls to spare. Their bowling was never anything to write home about
and their batting came unstuck against Roach’s pace and Benn’s spin.
Their fielding was sloppy and the overall approach suggested a drop in
their intensity having given their best against England. Dutch skipper
Peter Borren summed it up best when asked whether inserting West Indies
at Feroz Shah Kotla was a good idea.

“If we are going to bat and bowl and field as poorly as we did
today, it actually makes no difference if we bat or field first,” he
responded.