King and Motie set up opening win for Windies against Proteas - 1st T20I

Source: Trinidad Guardian

KINGSTON, Ja­maica - ICC Men's Twen­ty20 World Cup co-hosts West In­dies drew first blood in their warm-up se­ries against South Africa with a 28-run win yes­ter­day in Ja­maica af­ter Play­er-of-the-Match bat­ting from their in­ter­im cap­tain Bran­don King and steady bowl­ing from left-arm spin­ner Gu­dakesh Motie set them up.

King, lead­ing the Caribbean side be­cause fel­low Ja­maican and reg­u­lar cap­tain Rov­man Pow­ell is in­volved in the knock­out stages of the In­di­an Pre­mier League, hit six six­es and six fours in an elec­tri­fy­ing 79 from 45 balls, and the hosts reached 175 for eight af­ter they were put in to bat in the first T20I of the three-match se­ries at Sabi­na Park.

Motie then de­fied a ca­reer-best 87 off 51 balls from South African open­er Reeza Hen­dricks and bagged three for three for 25 from his al­lot­ted four overs be­fore the vis­i­tors were dis­missed for 147 in 19.5 overs.

Pac­er Matthew Forde end­ed with three for 27 from 2.5 overs and lanky left-arm pac­er Obed Mc­Coy fin­ished with two for 15 from three overs to com­plete the de­mo­li­tion of the Pro­teas bat­ting and en­sure no bats­man oth­er than Hen­dricks reached 20.

With at least half of their World Cup squad miss­ing ei­ther due to IPL com­mit­ments or rest­ing af­ter their in­volve­ment in the lu­cra­tive fran­chise T20 tour­na­ment, the re­sult was a step in the right di­rec­tion for the Caribbean side, whose aim is to clinch a third T20 world ti­tle and be­come the first to win the glob­al show­piece on home soil.

There are still a few ar­eas of con­cern for the home team to tidy up in the re­main­ing two match­es on Sat­ur­day and Sun­day at the same venue, but King eras­ing con­cerns about his fit­ness, and Motie prov­ing his use­ful­ness in the mid­dle of the in­nings were sat­is­fy­ing.

"We are head­ing in­to a World Cup, so we want to be play­ing good crick­et go­ing in­to that," King said dur­ing a post-play in­ter­view on TV. "We got the win, so we are hap­py about that, and I think all-round we played well.

"I think I know the con­di­tions very well, and I know that it is eas­i­er to bat against the new ball, so you have to try to get a re­al­ly good start be­cause when the ball gets old­er it gets more dif­fi­cult to score, and we saw that in both in­nings. That was my plan go­ing out there, and I ex­e­cut­ed it well."

King added: "At the mid­way point of our in­nings, I thought we could have got­ten 200 or so be­cause we had wick­ets in hand - but it's a dif­fi­cult pitch to bat on when the ball gets old­er, so we still end­ed up get­ting a com­pet­i­tive to­tal.

"I think [Motie] is a very skill­ful bowler, a very smart bowler. He changes his pace re­al­ly well, and he tries to think ahead of the bats­man and ex­e­cutes well most of the time, so he has been a re­li­able play­er for us, and we hope he con­tin­ues in­to the World Cup."

King got in­to stride with a dri­ve-through cov­er for four off left-arm spin­ner Bjorn For­tu­in in the first over and was dom­i­nant from ear­ly, re­duc­ing typ­i­cal­ly ag­gres­sive open­ing part­ner John­son Charles to a mere spec­ta­tor.

Charles faced on­ly five balls be­fore he was caught at deep square leg off pace new­com­er Ot­tneil Baart­man for one in the fourth over, and he was the on­ly bats­man to fall dur­ing the Pow­er Play, which end­ed with West In­dies on 64 for one.

King con­tin­ued to un­leash a vol­ley of strokes and brought up the fastest of his nine T20I 50s from 26 balls when he pulled a short ball from pac­er Lun­gi Ngi­di to "cow cor­ner" for his sixth four in the fi­nal over of the Pow­er Play.

Kyle May­ers was a sol­id al­ly for King, and they car­ried the Caribbean side to 109 for one at the halfway stage, but the in­ter­im West In­dies cap­tain was caught at short ex­tra cov­er from a mis­cued dri­ve off pac­er Andile Phehluk­wayo in the next over.

King and May­ers put on 79 for the sec­ond wick­et to pro­pel West In­dies to 115 for three, but the rest of the bat­ting of the hosts failed to come to terms with the pitch and dis­ci­plined bowl­ing from the Pro­teas and they lost sev­en wick­ets for 66 in the sec­ond half of the in­nings - some­thing that they will need to clean up.

Phehluk­wayo was the pick of the South Africa bowlers with three for 26 from his four overs, and Baart­man end­ed with three for 28 from his four overs.

Forde then had tal­is­man­ic left-han­der Quin­ton de Kock caught be­hind for four with the sec­ond ball of the chase, Ros­ton Chase got Ryan Rick­el­ton stumped for six in the sec­ond over, and Shamar Joseph, play­ing in his maid­en T20I, trapped Matthew Breet­zke lbw for 19, all in­side the Pow­er Play and had the South Africans were wob­bling on 46 for three.

But West In­dies met re­sis­tance when the Pro­teas cap­tain Rassie van der Dussen and Hen­dricks shared 42 for the fourth wick­et and car­ried the vis­i­tors to 99 for three at the halfway stage.

When Motie trapped van der Dussen lbw for 17 in the next over, a de­ci­sion con­firmed af­ter the bats­man re­viewed, at­tempt­ing an ill-ad­vised re­verse sweep, that opened the flood­gates, and on­ly Hen­dricks, whose lusty hit­ting in­ten­si­fied in the clos­ing stages, could of­fer South Africa a life­line.

Sum­merise Scores

WEST IN­DIES 175 for eight off 20 overs (Bran­don King 79, Ros­ton Chase 34 not out, Kyle May­ers 32; Ot­tneil Baart­man 3-26, Andile Phehluk­wayo 3-28) vs SOUTH AFRICA.