Quiet and consistent is not what you expect of the West Indies.
The stereotype of the Caribbean cricketer is loud, proud and expressive; when something happens, good or bad, you know. Broadly speaking, ruthless efficiency is not equated with the modern West Indies. Flamboyance and cutting-edge, sure. But not stealth.
And yet, they have quietly slipped under the radar this T20 World Cup.
It didn’t help that they came into this tournament on the back of some poor form. South Africa swatted them aside twice, before the quirks of the DLS calculation meant they won the third game despite scoring less than the Proteas.
“It feels like the same scenario 10 years ago where everything was against us,” head coach Daren Sammy said ahead of their first game of the World Cup. “Nobody gave us a chance, and I'm looking at the guys and the caliber of talent that we have in that dressing room.
“Even though nobody believes, I believe, and my team believes.”
As much as pre-tournament felt like 2016 for Sammy, he would much rather post-tournament feel the same, with him lifting a trophy.
Just over two weeks into the tournament, the West Indies have five wins from five games. They ended up in the table-toppers’ Super Eights group – scant reward for finishing first, one might think – but also recorded a net run rate of +1.874, only a shade behind South Africa, who earned much of that from thrashings of the UAE and Canada. India were far ahead with +2.500.
Unsurprisingly, these are the three teams to have four different Player of the Match winners at this tournament so far. Although that award perhaps represents little more than public opinion, having different players shine through each time is usually a good sign (and a popular cliche).
Captain Shai Hope made note of the same after their Nepal win: “It's good to see everyone chipping in in different, various ways. It's not the same person necessarily performing every game, so good signs from a team standpoint.”
An unfamiliar template, but a highly effective one
Ahead of the World Cup, Group C had high potential for upsets with Italy, Nepal and Scotland in the mix alongside an inconsistent Windies and vulnerable-to-spin England. But England had triumphed emphatically in Sri Lanka not long ago, and it was only in last September that (admittedly, a second-string) West Indies went down to Nepal across a series, not just one game.
Somehow, the West Indies have done it the easy way and the hard way so far. Easy because on paper, the wins have been comprehensive, but hard because the ease of the endings have at times come after an uncomfortable moment or two.
A poor powerplay against Scotland was overcome by a second-half acceleration and the flurry of wickets they took at the death in the second innings. Sherfane Rutherford bailed them out from 77-4 against England, before the spinners came good. Turn one of those results around, and things might not have looked as rosy.
The banana-skin fixtures in Italy and Nepal were two genuinely one-sided victories, against teams that had given England real scares. Against Zimbabwe, the win was as good as sealed once they made 254 batting first.
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On the batting front, they have stuck to their pre-World Cup template of starting slow and moving up the gears through the innings. Only Oman, Canada and Nepal’s batters have scored slower in the powerplay, and only Canada and Scotland have hit fewer powerplay sixes (three) than West Indies’ four.
It feels antithetical to the ideal of today’s T20 cricket where it seems every ball must go, but has paid dividends handsomely.
To make up, West Indies have virtually turned the entire second half of the innings into the death overs. The median team strike rate in the last four overs of the innings in this World Cup is 166; led by Rutherford and Shimron Hetmyer, their batters strike at 182 across the entire back ten. They hit a six every 6.6 balls in this period; the next best is Afghanistan at 10.6.
The knock-on effect of burying opposition like this is that West Indies’ death bowling, perhaps their single biggest weakness, has yet to be truly tested. They had the second-worst economy rate in overs 17-20 across the last World Cup cycle, but have entered this phase having reduced opponents to 132-5, 141-7, 82-6, 115-7 and 127-9. Extra runs force high asking rates. High asking rates force risks. And when those risks are taken against the quality of Akeal Hosein and Gudakesh Motie through the middle, they force wickets.
Slowly but surely, West Indies have built a head of steam
All this comes with the caveat that barring England, they are yet to face top-quality opposition. But one might have expected more hiccups from a unit that isn’t quite the behemoth that India or South Africa have shown themselves to be in the most recent World Cup cycle.
As much as Hope would like not to put too much stock in form – “we can get big runs one day and then the next day we can get out first ball” – confident players may commit to courses of action more wholeheartedly when they have results behind them. In a short tournament, even if West Indies are not as complete on paper, they have results and performances behind them to look at and take real hope from.
Whether that is enough to topple a favourite or two remains to be seen, but look at it this way: whoever makes the final of this tournament will play nine games, and West Indies have won their first five on the trot. They are more than halfway there.
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