West Indies didn’t do too much wrong, it was just that Bangladesh did it better
Jarrod Kimber in Taunton17-Jun-2019When we watch sport, we’re drawn to the result, it colours how we see the rest of the match.When West Indies made 212 in their last match, against England, they didn’t look like an ODI batting line up. They looked like a T20 side confused by a helpful pitch, good bowling and a large playing surface. In this match they made it to 321, so obviously they batted better, and more like a proper ODI team.Except, they didn’t.When West Indies bowled, they went with the short ball, as that is what their attack is set up for. And they used it relentlessly, their pacers bowled tonnes of short-of-a-length and short balls, and Bangladesh scored 190 from them. So they tried too many short deliveries.Except, they didn’t.WATCH on Hotstar (India only) – Highlights West Indies still went after this innings like a T20 match, they blocked the ball or bashed it. West Indies did bowl a lot of short deliveries, but Bangladesh were incredibly lucky from them.ALSO READ: Shakib simplicity keeps Bangladesh’s complex challenge aliveIn their batting, there were signs they had changed their thinking for this game. Darren Bravo came into the side for Carlos Brathwaite, weakening the bowling and giving their top order some cover.Chris Gayle started with 12 dots, and while that seems incredibly slow, Gayle can start slow. His strike rate in the first ten balls of ODIs over the last five years is 61.5. This was slower than that, of course, but it’s not unheard of for Gayle.Evin Lewis and Shai Hope stayed in this time, but it’s not as if last match they didn’t try that. At Southampton, Hope was out trying to flick a single, and Lewis was bowled when he misjudged a straight one. Neither batsmen were out at Southampton attempting to slog. The real problem was both failed, and there was no other regular batsman to come.Against England, it was Nicholas Pooran and Shimron Hetmyer, two firecrackers in human form, who put on the best partnership. Sure, they still did it their way, and at least one should have made a more significant score. Here they were both free to be themselves; both were caught playing shots they’ve been selected to play.The main difference in the batting was that several of their players did the role they are in the side for.Lewis handled the new ball well when, as assistant coach Roddy Estwick said, “it moved all over the place”. Then Lewis struck hard when it was in his zones and tried to cash in on balls spinning towards him. Hope had a high dot-ball percentage for most of his innings and never scored many boundaries. Both are standard for him, but by batting into the 47th over, he allowed his team to do what they do. Hope may not have scored many boundaries, but he allowed his team-mates to score a bunch.Darren Bravo probably came into the side to bat No. 4; he finally came out at eight, as they just kept picking the best batsman for the situation. If Hope had gone earlier, Bravo probably would have been used then. They perhaps went too hard in the middle, meaning that poor Oshane Thomas had to faff about at the end and knock his own bails off in confusion. It meant that instead of smashing the ball at the death, Hope and Bravo were out there, and for the last couple of overs Bravo was stuck at the wrong end. “If you look at 40-50 overs, we scored 79 runs, on a field like this we should have got 100-110,” Estwick said.But there’s no one reason they didn’t get the big score they wanted. They were put in for a tough 10 overs, had scored at 4.3 after 20 overs, lost Gayle early, no one made a hundred, Andre Russell failed, Hope went slow, the tail couldn’t get them runs at the death and they still made 327.If they won, it would have looked enough, that’s how it works, right? But regardless of the result, they left runs out there. It was always short; you can blame the first 10 overs, the lack of hitting at the end or Hope’s lack of “a little bit more intent” as Jason Holder put it. But they didn’t score enough. “A par score on this wicket was 365-370,” said Holder.At the halfway point, Shakib Al Hasan said of the Bangladesh changing room “everyone was confident and chilling”.Watch on Hotstar (India only) – Evin Lewis’ 70With the bowling, or more accurately, the short bowling, just a few balls told a story. Soumya Sarkar flayed and missed his first back of a length ball outside off. Next delivery he sliced one down to third man on the bounce. His following ball he guided one down on the bounce to slip. The ball before he was dismissed Soumya cut the ball over point for six, next ball he guided a short ball to third slip.No length in ODI cricket has a better strike rate than the short ball, but it still goes for runs. There is risk with reward.The short ball is popular in this tournament. With four men out during the middle overs, taking out shots down the ground by bowling short makes it easier to set the field. And teams have more quick bowlers than ever. West Indies have four bowlers in their squad who can bowl 90mph plus, as well as two bowlers who get freaky bounce. Their one win came from bouncing Pakistan out, they should’ve beaten Australia with a similar tactic. This is their bowling.With Sunil Narine not here, Devendra Bishoo losing form, and Ashley Nurse not a wicket-taker, they have no frontline spinner. Had they won the toss and bowled when there was some freshness in the surface, they would have bowled a lot more length, and attacked the channel. But by the time they bowled, they went for the short ball.The Bangladesh players had already been bounced by England, they’d been facing it in the nets, and their players were ready for it. Shakib said: “We knew it was going to come, we prepared for those challenges, and the wicket played really well today.” Liton Das admitted that for the first 15 balls he struggled with the short one. Even when well set towards the end of his innings he played and missed at a pull, top edged another one, scooped one short of a hobbling Russell and was struck on the helmet by Sheldon Cottrell.Shai Hope hit a patient 50•Getty ImagesWhen pushed further on their bowling, Shakib said: “At certain times they bowled well, good areas, but they were not patient enough to bowl in good areas for a long enough.”Now there are two ways to look at this. You can say they weren’t patient for continually going for the short ball, or you can suggest they were patient by delivering 44% of their balls back of a length. They saw Bangladesh’s weakness, and they kept going for it, even when it seemed to an outsider it was wrong. Only two times had a team bowled more balls on that length all tournament: West Indies against Australia, and England when they bowled to Bangladesh. Both occasions, short deliveries accounted for lots of wickets and averaged 24 and 22. In this game, the short ball averaged 85 for West Indies.So based on that you’d say they bowled too many, but 41 balls of the 111 short ones delivered, Bangladesh were not in control of. That’s 36%, or one in three. Balls lobbed up all over the place, some carrying over the keeper’s head, other times fine of third man and fine leg. According to ESPNcricinfo data, short-of-a-length deliveries that batsmen are not in control of result in a dismissal every 8.35 balls, so to only get two wickets to this seems unlucky.More than just luck, as Holder noted. “We missed a crucial chance when Shannon [Gabriel] should have gotten in and taken a chance.” That was in the 22nd over, Bangladesh were 143 for 3, the batsman was Shakib. He made 72 more runs, and Bangladesh never lost another wicket.But if you use mammoth fast bowlers in the field, there’s also a chance that some of them will not get to catches. If you bowl a lot of short balls on a small ground, a few are going to fly to the boundary. Maybe the West Indians should have changed their attack, some will suggest huge Nurse could have helped, but as Estwick said: “If we sat here, and we played spin against Bangladesh, you know what you’d be saying to me, you should have bowled your pace, because pace is your strength. Four games ago everyone was saying how exciting and refreshing West Indies cricket looked, four games later, it’s the worst tactic in the world.”Their tactics were not terrible; their execution could have been better. Estwick put it best: “At the end of the day we lost a cricket game to a team that played a lot better than us. Bangladesh played better than us, and we lost a cricket game.”West Indies played reasonably well, except Bangladesh played better.
