WI vs Aus 2nd ODI Highlights today Saturday, 7-24-2021 – 2nd ODI (D/N), Australia tour of West Indies (ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup Super League) from Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados.
ICC Rankings Test, ODI & T20
Australia won the toss and chose to bat first.
One change for West Indies too. Straight swap at the top of the order as Shai Hope returns from injury and comes in for Shimron Hetmyer. Hope will take the gloves today too making Pooran a specialist batsman. One change for Australia. Wes Agar comes out and Riley Meredith comes in to make his ODI debut.
West Indies team: 1 Shai Hope (wk), 2 Evin Lewis, 3 Darren Bravo, 4 Jason Mohammed, 5 Nicholas Pooran, 6 Kieron Pollard (capt), 7 Jason Holder, 8 Alzarri Joseph, 9 Hayden Walsh Jr, 10 Akeal Hosein, 11 Sheldon Cottrell.
Australia team: 1 Ben McDermott, 2 Josh Philippe, 3 Mitchell Marsh, 4 Moises Henriques, 5 Alex Carey (capt/wk), 6 Ashton Turner, 7 Matthew Wade, 8 Mitchell Starc, 9 Riley Meredith, 10 Adam Zampa, 11 Josh Hazlewood.
Match Timings: 18:30 GMT | 14:30 Local
Umpires – Gregory Brathwaite, Joel Wilson
TV Umpires – Leslie Reifer
Match Referee – Richie Richardson
Reserve Umpire – Nigel Duguid
Match number – ODI no. 4310
Post Match Presentation
West Indies captain Kieron Pollard: “It’s pleasing to win. Obviously, when you start a cricket match you want to win. But to say I’m overall pleased with our performance throughout the entire game. I think we have some work to do. Having Australia [45 for 6] and they getting 190, I thought we didn’t put our foot on the X. They get to 190, we gave them an opportunity to come into the game. Our batters didn’t make it easy as well.
It seems like we don’t like to do things the easy way. The spinners were fantastic. Hosein coming up trumps again, Walshy hard work continues to pay off. The start that we got, getting a couple of wickets early was fantastic by the bowlers. But as I said, 180-190 I think is a bit disappointing on our part to be totally honest. Australia has world-class bowlers. What was good this time around was the fight by the guys. Nicholas Pooran getting that half-century and Jason Holder as well.
Pooran has been looking like his old self again. He was a bit scratchy tonight but sometimes that’s what you need in a game like this. You want someone to scrap and I think they both scrapped well for us to come through for a victory. It’s a Catch-22 situation with [Jason Mohammed]. Obviously, Jason is playing a role, where if you lose a couple of wickets, you want him to bat long. From a Super50 perspective, he has done well. Chase normally does that for us. When you look at the makeup of our team and me coming back not being able to bowl. he gives us that sixth bowling option. We will look at it as a team and come up with our best combination to play this third game.”
Australia captain Alex Carey: “Obviously it doesn’t help when you’re 5 for not a lot. Wade and the bowlers did a great job to get us to a total and we were back in the game. We took some early wickets again and the belief was there. We created opportunities and we were in the game in the back end. Unfortunately, we couldn’t quite close it out and it proved we were 20 or 30 short. I think both teams tonight, spin is a threat on these types of wickets. I think the way Matt Wade and Starc combatted that, Adam Zampa had a plan against them.
I suppose with the newer ball it might spin and bounce a bit more so we need to get through those first overs against the spinners. A great effort again to get to 190 and we were definitely in the game. I thought the bowlers did a fantastic job. At five down, we had an opportunity to crack it open again. We definitely created enough to stay in the game. Bring on game three. The batting group has a bit to prove to get a good score on the board for our quicks but our quicks and spinners are doing a great job.”
Pooran is named Man of the Match for his eighth ODI half-century: “I want to dedicate this to my wife. This is my first half-century since I got married so this is for her. For me, it was just about building a partnership and fighting with Jason. We just had to find a way and fight. I was just backing my strengths and wanted to hit the gaps as hard as possible. I work day in and day out, try a lot of things in the nets, just to get better each day. I have goals I want to accomplish and I can only do that by working hard. All the bowlers bowled fantastic today upfront. Well done to them. I just felt like, we allowed them to get too much runs and we gave them a chance in the game. That’s something as a group we won’t tolerate. The body language in the field dropped. That’s something we don’t like.”
