BBC Sport – World T20 cricket: Darren Sammy wants West Indies legacy.
He surely did create a legacy for the world yesterday. Windies were the favorites entering into the tournament and they certainly lived up to the expectation. One thing about T20 cricket is, it’s the fearlessness that defines even before the match has started, the will to survive and win a contest. The legacy of fearlessness was for sure laid down by the Indians under the newly appointed captain Dhoni in T20 World Cup 2007 when the entire world saw how Dhoni’s own enthusiasm and youth rubbed on every player in the team. The same was displayed by Windies yesterday under Darren Sammy. The enthusiasm and the will to enjoy every moment of their cricket defined even before the match had started, that no matter what happened yesterday, Windies were gonna give the Lankans a hard fight for their money. Chris Gayle as expected spoke too much and supported a little, same as Dwayne Bravo but the man who did all the talking was Marlon Samuels, although he did it with the only thing he could have spoken with – his willow! Remaining unperturbed right through the match, he showed the world that his career will only prosper from here on in after the struggles he has gone through. Calm, cool, collected he chose to be wily yesterday, scoring slowly at start and then blasting 2 overs for more than 20 with shots that can only be described in a single word – clean. The bowling saw the Windies dropping hooks on every scoring opportunity that Lankans had and at sometime Lankans had to give and they did. They self-destructed, imploded under the eye of supreme over-confidence. The shots – loose, footwork – poor, the captain himself never paved way for a run chase even though he was one of the high scorers in the Lankan innings. His own shots were very dangerous to be precise. Sweeping from such precariously low angles was always gonna land him in trouble. The sun is shining for Windies right now and may this give the direction and the impetus that they, their cricket and the world cricket so desperately needs.
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