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Follow UsThe second T20I between India and West Indies women was one of those games where things started going wrong for one team and only got worse as the game progressed.
However, to say that Murphy’s law applies here would be like taking a shortcut to understanding what happened in the game. It just wasn’t the case that everything went wrong for India—with the bat, ball, or in the field. It was a game in which the West Indians played at their brutal best and made the Indian women pay dearly for every single mistake they made.
It all began with Deandra Dottin’s opening spell. There’s a reason she calls herself the ‘world boss’ with such conviction on her face. There are very few cricketers in the game's history who can do everything on the cricket field (maybe she can even keep wickets at this point) with such brutal domination that the match should be shown with a PG13 warning.
Take her new ball bowling, for instance. She bowled with a lot of gas and challenged the Indian opening batters to do something different against her by keeping it tight. Uma Chetry and Smriti Mandhana were both docile to begin with against her, choosing to stay rooted in their crease. It eventually cost Chetry her wicket, as Dottin bowled a nearly unplayable delivery that jagged back in sharply and stayed just a touch low after falling on a length.
After bowling her first two overs for just 1/7, she returned and bowled even better at the death. Mandhana, until that point, was out after her luck finally ran out, and her shot-making was brought to a tame end. When Dottin arrived at the death, she had to bowl against Richa Ghosh, who was batting at a strike rate of 200 and threatening to take India to 170-180.
However, Dottin came back in the 19th over of the game and dismissed Richa Ghosh by bowling a ball in the block hole that the batter failed to get away with and got an edge straight to the keeper, who took a spectacular diving catch.
Dottin’s contribution in the game didn’t just end there. She even took an unbelievable catch when Radha Yadav smacked a ball towards midwicket, with the West Indian going airborne after running a few yards to her right. Everyone was stunned on the field. How could a bowler who has already nailed bowling in the opening overs and at the death also be so good in the field? And remember, this was after her teammates had disappointed her by dropping Mandhana thrice.
In the end, India could only score 159/9 in the 20 overs. This was never enough on a pitch where dew would fall, and the dew did arrive by the sixth or the seventh over in the West Indian innings.
It’s one thing to bowl poorly and forget your line and length. However, it’s another thing to keep bowling mindlessly on the shorter side and getting smacked throughout the over. Titas Sadhu and Renuka Singh Thakur began so miserable that India’s hope of denting West Indies early in the chase was lost by the end of the second over itself.
This is also where the West Indian power-hitting came to the fore. Qiana Joseph is a batter who is known to hit down the ground and on the leg side. She was absolutely spectacular against the Indian new ball bowlers, while the Indians didn’t help themselves by bowling either shot or in her slot. Joseph smacked the ball with such ferocious power that the Indians went on the back foot immediately. Joseph scored 38 runs off just 22 deliveries, courtesy of six fours and two sixes. It took a well-disguised slower delivery from Saima Thakur to finally end her stay.
At that point, one wondered why Sadhu or Thakur hadn't tried the same variation earlier in their overs.
However, by the time Joseph was dismissed in the seventh over, dew had already started to fall in, as the Indian captain Mandhana told in the press conference. Hayley Matthews was set and was ready to go bark against the Indian bowling attack, who was looking out of sorts, to say the least.
Matthews batted throughout the innings and scored 85 runs off just 47 deliveries, courtesy of 17 boundaries. What really stood out in her innings was her effort to disturb the line and length of the bowlers. She struck some remarkable boundaries on the off and the left side while still being in motion in her crease. It felt like there were only gaps in the field and the fielders existed just as scarecrows.
Not a single bowler, whether a pacer or a spinner, was spared as Matthews looked to end the game early and eventually succeeded in it by chasing 160 in just 15.4 overs and with nine wickets remaining.
If you think the Australia series was the rock bottom for the Indian team, think again. A loss against West Indies at home in such a manner is ringing danger bells at a faster rate than Mandhana is scoring T20I half-centuries.
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