West Indies serve reminder of their depth of short-form talent

 

Kieron Pollard loaned forward and sang the initial lines of Sizzla's Solid As A Rock at the post-match show, praising a series win West Indies serve reminder of their depth of short-form talentthat West Indies frantically required. It seemed like the beginning of a recuperation.

Just fourteen days prior, West Indies' restricted overs side were at a low ebb. With their awful safeguard of the T20 World Cup they had recovered in 2016 new in the memory, Pollard remained before the cameras after a 2-1 loss at home to an Ireland side exhausted by Covid resembling a man pushed beyond his limits. "It's a dismal day for ourselves and miserable day for West Indies cricket," he said.

On Sunday night, the differentiation was obvious. West Indies met up to commend a sensational success in the T20I series decider against England, with Pollard driving an honorable lap around the Kensington Oval. Jason Holder, who had chilled the success with four wickets in four balls, 24 hours in the wake of surrendering four continuous sixes, talked to Sir Garfield Sobers on the outfield while Pollard tended to the individuals who have condemned him and his group.

"Each and every one in that changing area there, we energized together all through everything," he said, pointing towards the stands with a stump like talking at a political meeting. "Each time we dominated a match there was a negative thing against us yet we came out together and we extremely revitalized. So all around good done to each and every one within there and all of the allies who upheld us."

Pollard's run in with previous CWI systems - and his attractiveness on the establishment circuit - implied that he was just an irregular individual from the West Indies set-up for a long time, and has been a magnet for analysis from specific pieces of the local media since he turned out to be full-time restricted overs commander in 2019.

He was irate this week when cases arose that Odean Smith had been dropped for the third T20I because of a spat with the skipper - claims which overlooked the way that Rovman Powell, who supplanted him, had scored a stupendous hundred - and shot them down after Sunday's success, saying basically: "Void vessels make the most commotion."

Pollard's captaincy has been an obvious objective yet Sunday's decider was an update that you don't play 577 matches across a T20 profession without learning some things. He ran contrary to the natural order of things by deciding to bat when pursuing is stylish, thinking that sudden spikes in demand for the board would place strain on England's unpracticed line-up in an unquestionable requirement win circumstance, and supported himself to defeat a strangely sluggish beginning and furnish West Indies with a defendable aggregate.