The most amazing match for the West Indies was today against Zimbabwe. It was crucial match for both the teams. It was the West Indies who won the toss and elected to bat first. The team was full of confidence after their win against Pakistan with a huge margin of 150 runs.
At the very start of the innings they lost their key opener Dwayne Smith. He was bowled on the 2nd delivery of the 1st over of the innings. The Marlon Samuels the right-hand talented batsman joined the Gayle Force. They both began steadily and started to build a crucial and much needed partnership for their team. Slowly and steadily they speeded up the runs scoring. They batted at a run rate of 11 runs per over in the batting powerplay. Gayle had started playing his natural game. He started smashing the balls all over the ground. He hit 16 sixes and 10 boundaries in his record breaking score of 215 in world cup in 147 balls. He scored the highest individual score in World Cup breaking the record of South African legend Gary Kirsten. He also matched the record of 16 sixes to that of Rohit Sharma. On the other hand Marlon Samuels played a nice and complimentary hand. He also scored a good ton. He played himself in and rotated the strike well and gave Gayle more of the strike as he was striking the ball well. He dis not think about his ton. It can be called a selfless century by him. He scored 133 with 3 sixes and 11 boundaries in 156 balls. They also had a record breaking partnership of 372 breaking the partnership of two Indian legends Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid of 331 in 1999. The bowling by the Zimbabwe side was bad as they gave away 24 extras and couldn't even get more than two wickets. They could get Gayle out at the last ball of the innings. They had a huge target to chase of 373 runs.
It was going to be hard work for the Zimbabwe batsman. They lost early wickets and also some wickets in the middle. They did nit have a good partnership. No one gave a big contributions at the top of the order. Brendan Taylor got a start but got out on 37 and then was another good knock of 72 by Sean Williams and Craig Ervine scored 52 but they fell short of 73 runs due to the D/l method and were all out for 289 in 44.3 overs. The West Indies bowlers did a great job. Jerome Taylor was the pick of their bowlers with 10 overs 3 wickets and giving away just 38 runs.
In the end it was a comprehensive win for the West Indies side.
In the end it was a comprehensive win for the West Indies side.
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