After such a promising start it is only fair to say Darren Bravo failed live to the reputation. He flunked badly in the remaining part of the tournament and his poor run continued in the series against Pakistan too. But it was after the failure in the second ODI against India, he was dropped from the playing XI too. Today, after the senior partner Sarwan retired hurt due to cramps, he took the challenge upon himself to win the game for WI almost single handed.
When WI took the batting powerplay at the 43rd over, he straight away changed from 2nd gear to 6th gear to score 15 runs of Ashwin with 2 huge sixes, 14 runs of Mishra with 2 sixes, 14 runs of Vinay Kumar with a 6 and 4 in the next 3 overs. When Mishra foxed him in the early 46th over, the damage was already done and WI victory was just a formality. However, Samuels ensured the victory in style by smacking Vinay Kumar for another 20 runs in the 48th over. The most interesting incident was Samuel immediately ran to Chris Gayle after the last runs to celebrate the victory. Guess he was sending some message to the board.
The pain of lose was very much evident on Virat Kohli when he threw the ball in anger to the wicket keeper during the final moments of the game. He knew that captain Dhoni would have never let this defeat happen from the jaws of victory. Well that is difference between the natural leader and the made up captain.
"Winning is a habit. Once you lose it, it is hard to get back". I know I've said this like a broken record. In this case India lost the habit in the 4th ODI mainly because of messing the winning combination. Now the nightmare continues.
Also I felt it was unfair on the management to drop Badrinath for this game. If Badri's omission is justified, then Yusuf Pathan selection hardly made sense.
Bottomline: Had WI played this series to the real sense of home advantage, there is no doubt they would have prevailed over India.
Dinesh
Cricket Lover
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