SECOND ONE-DAY INTERNATIONAL: WEST INDIES VERSUS ZIMBABWE
At the National Cricket Stadium, Saint George’s Grenada, 24 February 2013
Result: West Indies (274/3) beat Zimbabwe (273/8) by 7 wickets.
A much better performance with the bat than on Friday was not enough for Zimbabwe to beat the West Indies, in their second One-Day International (ODI) match of the International Home Series 2013.
As it was, West Indies won the match by seven wickets and with it the ODI series as the win gave them an unassailable two-nil lead going into the third and final match at the same venue – the National Cricket Stadium in the Grenada capital, Saint George’s, on Tuesday.
Once again Zimbabwe captain Brendan Taylor won the toss, but this time decided to bat.
Although Taylor himself fell for a duck when he was trapped leg-before-wicket by his West Indies counterpart Dwayne Bravo, and Chamunorwa Chibhabha – the first wicket to fall – was bowled by Narine for 11 in the 12th over, the rest of the Zimbabwe batsmen did much better than in the first ODI on Friday with Craig Ervine putting up 80 runs, Hamilton Masakadza 60 and Vusimuzi Sibanda, playing in his one hundredth ODI, 51 runs.
However, thanks to Dwayne Bravo , the Zimbabwe batsmen failed to convert any of the top knocks into big scores. Other than Taylor, Bravo – standing in for the rested Darren Sammy – accounted for Ervine, Masakadza and Sibanda and then returned to try and clean up the tail, taking the wickets of Regis Chakabva and Kyle Jarvis in the process, on his way to retaining career-best figures of six for 43. For that, he was chosen man of the match.
Bravo was presented with his award by former West Indies batsman and wicket-keeper Junior Murray, a native of Grenada, who last week was honoured by the University of West Indies for his service to Caribbean cricket.
In their allotted 50 overs, Zimbabwe made 273 runs – their highest away total against West Indies.
The West Indies response was led by an opening partnership that contributed 111 runs. Sarwan starred in that contribution with his fifth ODI century. At the end of the West Indies inning, he was on 120 runs – his highest ODI score.
But it might not have been had umpire Peter Nero not rejected Zimbabwe’s run-out appeal against Sarwan when he was on 53, and instead referred it to the third umpire.
