West Indies thrive on aggressive brand of cricket
|| CF Correspondent ||
Fast bowler Sheldon Cottrell, the architect of West Indies’ dominative victory against Bangladesh in first T20 International match on Monday alongside Shai Hope revealed that their plan to play aggressive brand of cricket paid the dividends at the end.
Cottrell and his fellow fast bowlers Oshane Thomas and Keemo Paul used the short balls to precision to terrorize Bangladesh batsmen right from the beginning that resulted a top order collapse from which the hosts never recovered despite Shakib Al Hasan’s 43 ball-61.
Cottrell disclosed that it was not just about short ball strategy, rather they stuck to their plan to be aggressive all the way.
“Definitely not,” he differed when asked about the short balls plan. “Our plan in this game was to just bowl aggressive in whatever we do, whether bowling Yorkers, length ball, short ball. Just to bowl aggressive, and it paid off.”
Cottrell ended up with his career best 4-28 while Keemo Paul, who cleaned up the tails, returned figures of 2-23 and Oshane Thomas who regularly clocked over 140 km/h, scalped 1-33 as Bangladesh were shot out for paltry 129 in just 19 overs.
In any kind of pitch, this total is not enough to put a fight and the task was difficult for Bangladesh, when West Indies batsmen chose to go on berserk right from the start of the chase.
The dominating victory was specially pleasing for West Indies who came off a painful defeat in Test (a 2-0 whitewash) and ODI (a 2-1 defeat) series.
But Cottrell seemed to echo the voice of his captain Carlos Brathwaite, who vowed to give a Christmas gift to his countrymen by winning the T20 series as he said that they are looking forward to go home with some sweet memories.
“As I said it’s a different format and most of the guys are looking forward to go home. It’s closer to home and so we play our best cricket now. We just come together, it was just cricket on the day for me,” he pointed out.
“We would like to take this momentum into the next two games and finish our tour here. That has been the talk in the camp, just to win some games and get better mood going. This game is like a platform for to take into the two games,” Cottrell concluded.
