 |
| Courtesy of West Indies Cricket |
Jamaica—The last
time West Indies celebrated an international win was 2004 with the ICC
Champions Trophy’s, and their last win in a World Cup was 33 ago. That winless
drought ended with the victory of the ICC World Twenty20 Tournament in Sri
Lanka against the home team.
They made 137 for six off 20 overs to Sri Lanka’s 101 off 18.4 overs.
Caribbean folks have long stopped
celebrating West Indies cricket.
To most
people the emotional pain the team has caused is ever present; the glory days
of the 1970s has long been forgotten.
West Indies will come close to winning a match but find a way to loose, so a lot of people had stopped believing they would every win another title. But
hopes were renewed after an impressive win against Australia in the semifinals by 74 runs, 205-4 to 131.
Batting first in the finals West Indies didn’t accumulate as many runs to dominate the match.
But when their bowlers took the pitch they
held Sri Lanka in check, limiting the team that has reached an ICC tournament
final four times to their first six in the 16
th over.
When it was
clear West Indies would really win the tournament team members started to dance
and some dusted off Marlon Samules’ uniform, as he saved the team with 78 runs.
He was later named Man of the Match. In
a post-game interview about the reactions of fans back in the Caribbean, team
captain Darren Sammy said, “thank God it’s Sunday because if it was a weekday
nobody would be at work. Hopefully, this will be the beginning of things to
come. We won’t say we’re back but this is a step in the right direction to make
the Caribbean people proud.”
He’s
absolutely right.
