Skipper Sammy snatches victory from Australia

Darren Sammy cracked a 28 ball 50 runs innings to power West Indies to a wonderful 3 wicket win over Australia in the warm-up game at Kolkata.

West Indies were rocked by Josh Hazlewood’s hattrick which brought them down to 18/3 initially while chasing the target of 162 runs put up Australia. Hazlewood removed Jason Holder, Marlon Samuels and Dwayne Bravo in the 4th over of the match to badly dent Windies team’s chasing efforts. The batting team suffered a couple of more setbacks after Johnston Charles and Denesh Ramdin were made to depart in consecutive overs by Steven Smith and Adam Zampa respectively.

But, the West Indies team steadied itself as Andre Russell and Darren Sammy showed resistance. But, Andrew Tye pushed West Indies on the back foot again after he managed to clinch the wicket of Andre Russell before the duo could prove to be match-turners. The match was in favor of the Aussies until Sammy (50 from 28 balls) along with Craig Braithwaite (33 from 14 balls) clobbered the Australian bowlers in the final overs to snatch the victory from the Kangaroos.

Earlier, Aaron Finch and Shane Watson gave blistering start to the innings after the Steven Smith won the toss and decided to bat first. The openers looked in a wonderful hitting form with Finch and Watson opening their account with boundaries.

It was exciting to see them batting right from the start. Finch muscled back to back fours in the 2nd over while Watson sowed his strength with to crunching sixes in the following over. The Australians raced past 50 in the inside 6 overs. West Indies found their first breakthrough after left arm spinner Suleiman Benn managed to get rid of Aaron Finch in the 9th over. Few over later Watson too went to the dugout.

The Australian then suffered a batting collapse and lost their middle order within no time. But, Smith, from one end, kept the run flow intact to take Australia to a comfortable 161/9 after the end of 20 overs.

Brief Scores:  

Australia: 162/9 in 20 overs (Shane Watson 60; Dwyane Bravo 4/21)

West Indies:162/7 in 19.5 over (Darren Sammy 50; Andrew Tye 2/35)