Line of Fire Michael Holding

A placard held up by one of India’s supporters read “Zimbabwe went home last week, you’re playing India now.” Without trying to be cruel to Zimbabwe, everyone concerned, the West Indies players and supporters alike would have welcomed the situation. The West Indies won all the completed games in that series, and we all like winners, but the prospect for good entertainment was nil.

What a start to the current series, victory off the second-last ball of the day to India. Statistically it was a close game, but after the West Indies managed to only set India a target of 252 runs in the reduced 45 over game, the odds were always pointing to an Indian victory.

A few hours before the scheduled start, the odds were pointing to an abandoned game with all the rain that had fallen overnight and in the early hours of Thursday morning. No wonder Rahul Dravid invited the West Indies to bat first after winning the toss.

Of course, India might have batted second irrespective of conditions as they have not lost a game batting second for a long time. This victory makes it 17th in a row, a world record, and with their strength in batting, there is every prospect of that statistic growing even further.

The target should have been a bit more difficult to achieve though if the West Indies had managed their innings a bit better. They had a marvellous start, with Runako Morton and Chris Gayle laying the foundations with an opening partnership of 87 runs at better than six runs an over.

Brian Lara got 35 off 43 balls but none of the other batsmen in the middle-order got anything substantial. It was left to Gayle to contribute more than half of the runs scored off the bat.

There were positives for the West Indies. But a big positive for the organisers of the World Cup next year was the ability to have such a prompt start after all the overnight and early morning rain as it proved that the work and money spent on the new drainage had worked. (PTI)