161/2 (15.0)
CR : 10.73
160/6 (20.0)
CR : 8.00
West Indies won by 8 wickets
Player of the Match
Evin Lewis
71(35)
14.6
6
L Ngidi to A Russell
SIXXX!! Russell finishes off things in style. What a statement after losing the Test series!! Length delivery angling into Russell who smacks this from the meat of the bat over the mid wicket fence for a maximum.
Over 15.0
West Indies 161/2
Andre Russell23(12)
Chris Gayle32(24)
Lungi Ngidi0-46(3.0)
What an emphatic eight-wicket win for the Windies!! They have started this bumper T20 season in style. There are 14 more matches against South Africa, Australia and Pakistan. South Africa were always going to be short of the par total after posting just 160 but the duo of Andre Fletcher and Evin Lewis came all guns blazing. Their aggressive batting helped the Windies race onto 73/0 after the Powerplay to make SA's total look 70-80 runs short
Fletcher was eventually run-out in the 8th over after which the duo of Tabraiz Shamsi and Anrich Nortje managed to string some dots against Chris Gayle. However, the move to bowl Reeza Hendricks backfired as Gayle and Lewis combined to take 21 runs of the over. Lewis' breezy 71 off 35 balls came to an end off Shamsi's bowling in the 12th over as the southpaw decided to die by the sword he used to attack the SA bowlers till then.
The world-class pair of Gayle and Andre Russell made easy work of the remainder of the chase as they scored 37 runs off 19 balls. In the end, SA's attack turned to be too straight-forward to attack with the exception of Shamsi and Nortje
Evin Lewis has been named as the 'Player of the Match' for his outstanding knock.
Evin Lewis: I was very confident, I knew I could back my game. Was an excellent pitch, once you were in, you could play your shots. I just tried to hit them when they bowled in my area. I thought they were around 30-40 runs short, it did cross my mind (about a possible century), but at the same time, if we win with me scoring 70 odd, it's very satisfying. It's important that we keep backing ourselves and go on to win the series.
Temba Bavuma : Obviously disappointed. That's not the way we wanted to start. As a team, we have a lot to talk. We have to come with a better plan tomorrow. We thought it was a decent score, but below par. We were leaning on our bowling attack. As i said, we got to have those conversations. We didn't capitalise in the second half of our batting. We knew they'd come hard. They played well, Lewis and Fletcher got them off to a flier and they never gave us a chance after that. It's a mindset thing, you can't change your skills in a day or couple of hours. Our tactics have to be more sound. We'll have to come with a better attitude.
Keiron Pollard : We spoke about trying to hit the first punch. They got off to a pretty good start. Credit to the bowlers how they came back in the middle overs and in the back end. 160, I think that's on par. The way we went out and chased it, guys playing to their strenghts, it was well done. Talented cricketer, we want to more from Evin. (Regarding the Test team) Think we have to cut some slack. We have got a young team and they wouldn't have faced Nortje and Rabada before. We hope that the consistency continues. Winning the game with overs to spare and wickets in hand is a start for us. We can't get too much ahead of ourselves. We'll try to get better.
So, that is it from me, Karthik Raj and my co-commentators Anurag Singh and Arjun Bhalla. Stay tuned to OneCricket's coverage of the second T20I between SA and the West Indies and a lot more cricket games too