For a team that thrives on chasing, the West Indian spinners have ruled the art of defense in India
West Indies 254 for 6 (Hetmyer 85, Powell 59; Muzarabani 2-42) beat Zimbabwe 147 all out (Evans 43, Myers 28; Moties 4-2
by 107 runs
The West Indies bowled off the Super Eights phase of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup with an emphatic 107-run win over Zimbabwe at the Wankhede on Monday. In a batting display teeming with attacking shots and huge sixes, accentuated by swagger, Windies brought the Caribbean to Mumbai, mounting a mammoth 254 before their spinners wreaked havoc to cripple Zimbabwe’s chase.
Zimbabwe had to go. 255 runs were required for victory, and they had only 120 balls in which to get them. Courtesy of a few streaky boundaries, they managed 20 from the first 11 balls of the chase before Matthew Forde had Tadiwanashe Marumani (14) caught in the deep at the end of the 2nd over.
Akeal Hosein (3/2 bowled Brian Bennett (5) with a peach to begin the 3rd before removing Ryan Burl for a duck three balls later. Zimbabwe had lost three wickets without scoring another run. Sikandar Raza and Dion Myers stemmed the flow of wickets with a 32-run stand (24 balls), before Raza put on 42 (23 balls) with Tony Munyonga.
Both partnerships were ended by Gudakesh Motie (4/2, who found himself on a hat trick after bowling Raza (27) and Musekiwa (0) in consecutive deliveries to leave Zimbabwe 94 for 6 in the 11th.
With the West Indies rolling to a certain victory, the procession resumed with Zimbabwe losing three wickets for 8 runs. The final pair, Brad Evans (43) and Richard Ngarava (7), then fashioned the highest partnership of the innings (44 from 19), which was ended by a Matthew Forde (2/27) slower ball, wrapping up Zimbabwe’s response at 147 in 17.4 overs.