June 22, 2019: A dusky Manchester and a diminished dream for Carlos Brathwaite

‘Live by the sword, die by the sword’- The notion of West Indies batsmen committing mindless hara-kiri isn’t rocket science. It’s preposterous. As if they are hypnotised into not paying heed to the sound of the death knell. It’s a brand of cricket that might look tempting, but can be exasperating as well if not blended with caution. One such day, ending at the threshold of night, was in Manchester.

It started with Sheldon Cottrell’s symbolic salute, twice, removing Martin Guptill and Colin Munro for golden ducks. Ended with a defensively crouched Carlos Brathwaite, hands folded, heads down. ‘How on earth did Trent Boult hold on to the catch?’, he must have thought, allowing his fatigued adrenal to gently calm down. The sun, universally, went down after twilight, so did Carlos’ dream.

Wasn’t supposed to be that way. Or was it!

On a sun-baked day at the Old Trafford, Chris Gayle and Shimron Hetmyer were hell-bent on ripping New Zealand in twain. Trent Boult’s snorters to Shai Hope and Nicholas Pooran didn’t bother them one bit. The required-rate was down to around 5.3 and with Kemar Roach, who has three first-class fifties, at 10 along with a half-fit Evin Lewis to come, chasing 292 wasn’t expected to be a tall order.

Lockie Ferguson’s slower ball, ironically, pinned Hetmyer and halted the 95-ball 122-run stand. Shimron’s ugly hoick was uncalled for and Gayle couldn’t sway his temptations either. A limping Lewis, unable to run due to his hamstring tweak, tonked Boult straight down the throat of James Neesham. The blows were rather bombshells that reduced the Caribbeans and put the Kiwis on the driver’s seat.

Maybe they could have taken a cue of Kane Williamson’s 154-ball 148 and how the Black Caps’ skipper paced his knock until the death overs. With the score at 164 for seven, the only apparent threat was in the form of Carlos, who had an abysmal ODI average around 14 from 37 matches.

Jason Holder’s men dug themselves a hole and they knew it. Roach lofted Mitchell Santner downtown for a six, but he was more of sedate in his 47-run stand with Brathwaite. The duo didn’t ring the alarm bells in the Kiwis’ camp, but the Carlos-Cottrell pair sure did, taking their team closer.

Cottrell’s ODI average of 6.75 didn’t inspire confidence. But it’s the turn of the army man to show up. The Jamaican Defence Force personnel’s 26-ball 15 was no less than a soldier, dodging bullets from the enemy forces. It needed a peach from Lockie to end his resilience under extreme pressure.

Oh Carlos! You had Henry

From the other end, Carlos had witnessed five wickets go down. However, being his team’s final hopes, he couldn’t have dropped his guard. Having Oshane Thomas as the Last Man Jack, the asking rate climbed from 9.40 to 11 by the close of the 47th over. It was ought to go up since nothing much was expected of the burly Thomas and Carlos couldn’t have gifted his wicket away in fury either.

The next over saw two versions of Brathwaite- the audacious and the matured. While he hit Matt Henry for 25 runs with three sixes and a four, he had the presence of mind to retain the strike for the 49th over. The target was down to eight and Carlos was a run short of his maiden ODI ton. That one of the last two overs was to be bowled by a non-regular pacer made his task look straight forward.

Neesham, bowling the 49th over, came with a pre-meditated mindset and peppered Brathwaite with short-balls. His subtle changes in pace made it tough for Brathwaite, who got to his ton with a pull after three dots, two of which were plays and misses. It was followed up with yet another dot ball.

The mini dry run somewhat called for desperate measures from Carlos, who was clearly sceptical of taking the game to the last over. But that’s where he might have got it wrong, as it was to be bowled by either Henry, the Kiwis’ most expensive bowler on the day, or part-timer Colin de Grandhomme.

In the last ball, Carlos swatted at another half-tracker, only to be caught by Boult at long-on. The same Boult, who once pulled off a one-handed screamer to dismiss Virat Kohli in the 2018 IPL. For Brathwaite, it wasn’t the same, it was neither Ben Stokes nor Kolkata. Cricket is a leveller, isn’t it so?