Samuels Blasts West Indies To 18-Run Win

Samuels Blasts West Indies To 18-Run Win

Marlon Samuels enjoyed another Twenty20 game to remember by scoring a half-century which included nine sixes and then playing his part with the ball

©REUTERS / Action Images

West Indies 197-4 (Samuels 85no, Bravo 41) beat
Bangladesh 179-1 (Tamim Iqbal 88no) by 18 runs
Twenty20 International, Mirpur
Scorecard
Report by John Pennington

The West Indies won their first match since triumphing at the ICC World Twenty20 but were pushed hard by Bangladesh before running out the victors by 18 runs in Mirpur.

Marlon Samuels thumped nine sixes in an innings of 85 that led the West Indies to 197 for four before Bangladesh, inspired by Tamim Iqbal's 88 not out in 61 deliveries, closed on 179 for one.

Samuels faced just 43 balls and also hit three fours as he shaped the West Indian innings following the departures of Chris Gayle for six and Dwayne Smith for 24.

He formed a 66-run partnership for the third wicket Darren Bravo (41 in 28) and with help from Kieron Pollard (15 in nine) and Lendl Simmons (18 in 12) took the West Indies to the brink of reaching 200.

They got that close thanks to the final over of the innings - bowled by Rubel Hossain - going for 28 runs. Rubel ended with figures of two for 63, the second most expensive spell in Twenty20 International history.

Sohag Gazi (1-44) and Ziaur Rahman (1-16) were the other men to take a wicket, with Ziaur showing plenty of promise on debut with the most economical spell of the entire game.

Bangladesh set about their reply in familiar style, with a flurry of boundaries.

Often, the boundaries are accompanied by a clatter of wickets but on this occasion, they didn't follow although after Tamim and Anamul Haque's (22 in 12) initial burst was over, the bowlers did an excellent job of drying up the boundaries and ensuring that Bangladesh were always behind the required run-rate.

Despite Tamim blasting 10 fours and two sixes and Mahmudullah hitting three fours and four sixes in making 64 in 48 balls, they were unable to break the shackles.

Spinners Samuels (0-32), Gayle (0-18) and Sunil Narine (0-27) played Bangladesh at their own game and they had to after Darren Sammy and Andre Russell had been savaged early on.

Kemar Roach struck to remove Anamul and finished with one for 36 as the only pace bowler to bowl out as it quickly became apparent that spin bowling was the way to choke the scoring.

Bangladesh had needed 54 to win from the final three overs - an unlikely task but they could be forgiven for thinking that without Rubel's loss of control at the end of the first innings, they might just have still been in the game. On such margins do the shorter games turn and while Bangladesh will be encouraged with the way they continued to fight, once the West Indies found some control with the ball they were never seriously headed.

The game brings to an end a tour in which the West Indies won both Test matches, albeit pushed hard by the home side, and the One-Day Internationals were clinched 3-2 by Bangladesh.

© Cricket World 2012