Samuels and Narine rescues West Indies

Man of the match, Marlon Samuels, was in good form as his 126 runs helped the West Indies to a 4 wicket win over Bangladesh with 3 overs to spare.  Bangladesh leads the 5 match series 2-1.

Narine finally showed up in Bangladesh with his best performance thus far (Test or ODI), bagging 4-37 to help dismiss the home side for 227 in just over 49 overs.  He got help from Permaul’s 2-40.  West Indies took their time behind Samuels’ patient knock, getting help only from opener Kieron Powell (47 runs).

1.5 of the 3 changes I expected after the 2 embarrassing defeats happened.  The West Indies brought in spinner Permaul and opener Powell, two of the heroes from the just concluded tests that the West Indies won 2-0.  Ironically, both of these guys delivered.  I said 1.5 instead of 2, because one of the persons replaced wasn’t one of the 3 I expected.

1. I expected the West Indies selectors and coach to acknowledge that they didn’t bring the right batsmen… a clear shortage when Gayle and Samuels both fail.  An extra batsman (e.g. Chanderpaul) would have replaced Pollard for a game or two or three.

2, I expected non-performing Lendl Simmons to be replaced byPowell and he was.  Expect Powell to play the rest of the series.

3. I expected Dwaine Smith to be replaced for the entire series by Permaul.  Instead, he replaced Andre Russell because the West Indies felt they needed Dwaine Smith’s and Pollard’s “batting potential”.  Unfortunately, that’s the only thing we have gotten from that duo in quite some time is their “potential”.  There is nothing “kinetic” with their batting in recent history.