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Sunday, July 27, 2025

Quick refocus for Pooran as Gladiators make winning start

by

Sports Desk
976 days ago
20221124
Former West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran.

Former West Indies captain Nicholas Pooran.

ABU DHABI, Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates – Nicholas Pooran wast­ed lit­tle time in re­fo­cus­ing af­ter quit­ting the West In­dies white-ball cap­tain­cy, lash­ing a whirl­wind half-cen­tu­ry to fire his Dec­can Glad­i­a­tors to a 35-run vic­to­ry over Team Abu Dhabi on the open­ing day of the Abu Dhabi T10 on Wednes­day.

The 27-year-old Pooran, the Glad­i­a­tors cap­tain, top-scored with an un­beat­en 77 from 33 de­liv­er­ies as his side reached 134 for six from their al­lot­ted 10 overs, af­ter he called cor­rect­ly at the toss at the Sheikh Za­yed Sta­di­um.

Bat­ting at num­ber three, Pooran belt­ed five fours and eight six­es, post­ing 44 for the sec­ond wick­et with open­er Tom Kohler-Cad­more (13) and 72 for the fifth with West In­dies team­mate Odean Smith (23), to pull Glad­i­a­tors out of trou­ble at 60 for four in the fifth over.

On­ly on Mon­day, Pooran an­nounced he was step­ping down as West In­dies white-ball cap­tain, less than sev­en months af­ter be­ing ap­point­ed to the role. He cit­ed the “enor­mous dis­ap­point­ment of the T20 World Cup” as a fac­tor in his de­ci­sion.

Left-arm spin­ner Fabi­an Allen, who had ear­li­er claimed two for 18, then struck an un­beat­en 26 from 13 balls but Team Abu Dhabi could on­ly muster 99 for six from their 10 overs.

Eng­lish­man James Vince top-scored with 37 from 19 balls with four fours and two six­es, putting on 42 for the third wick­et with Allen.

In the first game at the venue, West In­dies open­er Evin Lewis blast­ed 58 from 22 balls with two fours and sev­en six­es as Bangla Tigers brushed aside Kieron Pol­lard’s New York Strik­ers by 19 runs.

Sent in, Tigers gath­ered 131 for five from their 10 overs thanks to the left-hand­ed Lewis who an­chored a 63-run stand for the third wick­et with Col­in Munro (30) and a 29-run, fourth wick­et stand with Ben Cut­ting (11), to pull the in­nings around from 15 for two in the sec­ond over.

For­mer West In­dies pac­er Ravi Ram­paul, 38, fin­ished with two for 16.

In re­ply, Pol­lard slammed a 19-ball un­beat­en 45 but the knock went in vain as Strik­ers fell short at 112 for eight.

Pol­lard, who quit in­ter­na­tion­al crick­et in April and was re­placed by Pooran as cap­tain, count­ed three fours and four six­es in an at­tempt to hold the in­nings to­geth­er as wick­ets tum­bled around him.

How­ev­er, Azam Khan with 34 from 13 balls, was the on­ly oth­er play­er who man­aged to get in­to dou­ble fig­ures, the West In­dies pair of Ro­mario Shep­herd (4) and Akeal Ho­sein (2) both fail­ing.

CMC


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