Vin­ode Mam­chan

The West In­dies are in­to the quar­ter­fi­nals of the 2015 ICC Crick­et World Cup af­ter they crushed min­nows Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates (UAE) at McLean Park, Napi­er, New Zealand, yes­ter­day.

Af­ter a four-wick­et burst from skip­per Ja­son Hold­er and a three-wick­et haul by Jerome Tay­lor had re­strict­ed the UAE to 175 all out in 47.5 overs, the West In­dies romped home at 176 for four, in 30.3 overs, to book a date with New Zealand in the quar­ter­fi­nals on March 21.

Need­ing to get the tar­get in less than 36.2 overs to guar­an­tee qual­i­fi­ca­tion, the West In­dies went af­ter the bowl­ing from ball one. They even took the pow­er­play as soon as the tenth over was fin­ished. Their win made the Pak­istan/Ire­land clash ir­rel­e­vant. Pak­istan lat­er whipped to join them in the quar­ters.

John­son Charles, play­ing his first match of the tour­na­ment, put away his mus­cu­lar shots to take the game away from the Mid­dle East­ern­ers. He cracked 55 off 40 balls with nine fours and two six­es. Al­so among the runs were Jonathan Carter with an un­beat­en 50 off 58 balls with five fours, and De­nesh Ramdin 33 not out off 50 balls with two fours.

Hold­er won the toss and with the rain threat­en­ing, opt­ed to bowl first. He was vin­di­cat­ed in the de­ci­sion with a bril­liant dis­play of seam bowl­ing. Look­ing to hit the top of off stump, Hold­er held an im­pec­ca­ble line with con­di­tions favour­ing seam move­ment.

He start­ed by send­ing back Am­jad Ali for five, fol­lowed up with An­dri Berenger for sev­en and added Kr­ish­na Chan­dran with­out scor­ing, his third duck of the tour­na­ment. When the Bar­ba­di­an had fin­ished his burst, the score was 17�3. The UAE's best bats­man this tour­na­ment, Khur­ram Khan, greet­ed Tay­lor with an at­trac­tive square cut for four. Next ball, Khan lost his leg-stump, as the Ja­maican pro­duced a beau­ti­ful in-swinger to put the min­nows in more trou­ble.

Tay­lor fol­lowed up with an­oth­er bril­liant in-swinger to ac­count for Shaiman An­war and at 26 for five, the fans would have been look­ing for a re­fund. Hold­er added the wick­et off Swap­nil Pa­tel (6) to make it 46 for six.

What hap­pened next, no one could have script­ed it. A car­go loader and an em­ploy­ee of an en­er­gy com­pa­ny in Shar­jah got to­geth­er to cre­ate a World Cup record part­ner­ship for the sixth wick­et, to bring some re­spectabil­i­ty to the to­tal.

Am­jad Javed, who works for Emi­rates Air­lines as a loader, de­cid­ed to de­lay the West In­dies flight to vic­to­ry with a stub­born 56 and he found an able part­ner in Nasir Az­iz, who had the en­er­gy to work with him, while get­ting a top­score of 60.

The two added 107 runs for the sev­enth wick­et which equalled the high­est pre­vi­ous mark of 107 which was re­alised by Javed and An­war ear­li­er in this tour­na­ment against Ire­land.

The West In­dies team went flat and looked dis­in­ter­est­ed dur­ing this as­so­ci­a­tion. It took all-rounder An­dre Rus­sell to break the stand when he got Javed for 56 off 99 balls with sev­en fours and a six. Samuels ac­count­ed for Az­iz for 60 off 86 balls with eight fours–he has pre­vi­ous­ly on­ly struck 12 fours in his ca­reer to date be­fore this in­nings.

In the end, six bats­men were bowled and marked the first oc­ca­sion since the 1979 Pru­den­tial World Cup in Eng­land.

SCORE­BOARD

WI vs UAE

UAE inns

A Ali lbw Hold­er 5

A Berenger c Ramdin b Hold­er 7

K Chan­dran c Smith b Hold­er 0

K Khan b Tay­lor 5

S An­war b Tay­lor 2

S Patil b Hold­er 6

A Javed b Rus­sell 56

N Az­iz c Hold­er b Samuel 60

M Naveed b Rus­sell 14

M Tauqir b Tay­lor 2

A Gu­ruge not out 4

Ex­tras lb4, w10 14

To­tal all out (47.4ovs) 175

Fall of wk­ts: 13, 16, 17, 21, 26, 46, 153, 167, 167, 175.

Bowl­ing: J Tay­lor 8.4-0-36-3, J Hold­er 10-1-27-4, K Roach 8-0-54-0, A Rus­sell 8-3-20-2, M Samuels 10-4-25-1, D Sam­my 1-0-4-0, D Smith 2-0-5-0.

WI inns

D Smith c Patil b Gu­ruge 15

J Charles c Chan­dran b Javed 55

M Samuels c Berenger b Gu­ruge 9

J Carter not out 50

A Rus­sell c & b Javed 7

D Ramdin not out 33

Ex­tras (lb4, w3) 7

To­tal for 4 wk­ts (30.3ovs) 176

Fall of wk­ts: 33, 53, 109, 118.

Bowl­ing: N Az­iz 6-0-47-0, M Naveed 6-0-34-0, A Gu­ruge 7.3-1-40-2, M Tauqir 3-0-22-0, A Javed 8-0-29-2.

Re­sult: West In­dies won by 6 wk­ts.

Man of match: Ja­son Hold­er

West In­dies 2 pts.

FI­NAL POINTS STAND­INGS

Team M W L T NR PTS NRR

In­dia 6 6 0 0 0 12 +1.827

S Africa 6 4 2 0 0 8 +1.707

Pak­istan 6 4 2 0 0 8 -0.085

West In­dies 6 3 3 0 0 6-0.053

Ire­land 6 3 3 0 0 6 -0.053

Zim­bab­we 6 1 5 0 0 2 -0.527

UAE 6 0 6 0 0 0 -2.032

QUAR­TER FI­NAL

March

18 - South Africa vs Sri Lan­ka at Syd­ney.

19 - Bangladesh vs In­dia at MCG.

20 - Aus­tralia vs Pak­istan at Ade­laide.

21 - West In­dies vs New Zealand at Welling­ton.