da dobrowin： S Rajesh presents the Plays of the day from South Africa v West Indies
da lvbet： S Rajesh at the Wanderers11-Sep-2007
Chris Gayle did not let the bowlers settle down © Getty Images
New balls, please
Chris Gayle had already smashed five sixes before the tenth over gotunderway, but he saved his biggest of the evening for Albie Morkel. Seeingthe manner in which the short balls had been dismissed earlier, Morkeltried to pitch it up, lost the plot slightly, and sent down a full toss.Gayle needed no second invitation: the right leg moved outside leg as hegave himself room, and the result was a savage carve over backward point,well over the stands outside the ground. Normally, that would have held upplay for at least a minute, but here, umpire Darryl Harper, standing atsquare leg, scurried across even as the reserve umpire, Karl Hurter,rolled another ball onto the ground. The delay hardly lasted five seconds,and play was ready to resume even before you’d realised the ball had beenchanged.Wounded Polly
Everyone in South Africa loves Shaun Pollock – there were huge cheersevery time he hit the stump while bowling in practice just before playbegan – but not much went right for him when it was his turn to bowl inthe middle. Gayle took him apart completely, but his one little moment tosavour in that hopelessly one-sided battle came in over number 12: apainfully slow bouncer pitched in the middle of the track, climbed andthen looped down even as it was reaching the batsman, Gayle, and soflummoxed him that he could only watch transfixed as it lobbed past him tothe wicketkeeper. Pollock and the crowd loved that bit of deception.Unfortunately for them, the rest of the went decisively against good ol’Polly, who was left nursing rather embarrassing bowling figures by the endof the day.Butterfingers
A target of 206 should have been difficult, but West Indies decided toplay gracious guests. Dwayne Bravo started the rot, allowing the ball topop out from his hands to give Gibbs a reprieve at 20; the virus thenspread to Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who spilled an admittedly difficultchance from Gibbs; Marlon Samuels then capped a miserable day for WestIndies in the field by dropping a sitter off Justin Kemp. Add all thewides sent down, and it’s easy to see why they lost.Eyeball to eyeball
It might be all fun and music for the crowd, but a couple of incidents inthe match showed that Twenty20 is serious business. Daren Powell startedoff with a vicious short ball which caused Graeme Smith immensediscomfort, and then began a glaring contest with Gibbs, who is neverone to back away. Fidel Edwards then continued the eyeball confrontation,sometimes bowling with such searing pace that the ball was still climbingwhen it reached the wicketkeeper.Ramdin to the rescue
The game was all about bat hitting ball and ball disappearing beyond theboundary, but there was one other performance that stood out too. WestIndies’ bowlers, perhaps not satisfied with a format that only allowseach of them 24 deliveries, bowled wide after wide, and Denesh Ramdin dartedaround like a dervish, gathering most of them cleanly. In the fifth over,when Daren Powell lost control altogether, Ramdin saved four byes bymoving down leg side and then diving full length to make a clean gather. Afew overs later, standing up to Dwayne Smith, he was at it again, making a cleantake way down leg despite being blinded by the batsman. The catch he tookto dismiss AB de Villiers capped a fine night’s work for him. If only thesame could have been said of the rest of the West Indian performance inthe field.
