West Indies began their final series ahead of next month’s ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in the worst possible fashion, suffering a nine-wicket beating at the hands of South Africa on Tuesday in Paarl.
Having rested regular captain Shai Hope due to a sore knee, the Roston Chase-led West Indies side was sent into bat and lost their first wicket off the penultimate ball of the fourth over with the score on 39, when Johnson Charles was bowled by Keshav Maharaj for 13.
Fellow opener Brandon King fell three balls later for a brisk 27 off 16 balls and when Maharaj bowled Sherfane Rutherford for six, West Indies had slid to 50 for three in the fifth over.
Promoted up the order, Matthew Forde managed 16 off 12 balls before his dismissal saw West Indies reduced to 79 for four in the ninth over.
Captain Chase was next back in the pavilion having made 22, with the score at 95 for five.
Shimron Hetmyer and Rovman Powell then added 74 runs in a sixth wicket partnership, as West Indies finally accelerated to reach 169 for 6 before Hetmyer was dismissed with four balls remaining for 48. His innings came off 32 deliveries and featured four fours and three sixes.
Jason Holder was the last man out for one, while Rovman Powell was left unbeaten on 29 off 25 balls, as West Indies ended their innings at a below par 173 for 7.
George Linde took 3-25, Corbin Bosch grabbed 2-35 and Maharaj 2-44.
In South Africa’s turn at the wicket, Lhuan-dre Pretorius and captain Aiden Markram added 68 without loss in the power play, to immediately put West Indies on the backfoot.
Pretorius was eventually dismissed in the eighth over by Chase for 44 off 28 balls with 83 runs on the board, but Markram went on to blast a T20I career best 86 off 47 balls, including nine fours and three sixes; while Ryan Rickelton added 40 from 33 deliveries, as South Africa sealed the win at 176 for 1 in the 18th over.
Chase was West Indies’ most economical and only successful bowler, taking 1-31 off his four overs. Speaking after the game, he said West Indies were about 20 runs short with the bat.
“We were initially looking for 195, so I thought we were initially short in the batting and then bowling in the power play, I thought that we didn’t have the best of starts and it was hard to pull back the game from there.”
“The batters just had to knock around the ball and they didn’t have to take too many risks to keep up with the run rate after that,” Chase said.
Despite the defeat, Chase said there was no reason to panic ahead of the second game.
“Yeah, I think we need to have a bit more plans in the power play to the batters, and it’s just for our batters to continue. We had a decent start in our power play as well, but we lost too many wickets at crucial stages. Losing too many wickets at crucial times slowed us down, and then obviously we didn’t get to the score that we wanted,” he said.
Chase also downplayed the absence of regular skipper Shai Hope.
“I think Shai’s OK,” he said. “I think it’s just a bit of a precaution after he got hit on the knee in the SA20 final, so I think he’s just nursing that a bit, but I’m hopeful he’ll be back for the next game.”
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