England celebrate after West Indies blunder

This, presumably, was not what Darren Sammy had in mind when he urged West Indies to keep their feet on opposition throats and grind them into the dust. After 13 unsuccessful international matches in five months, England put the “win” back into “winter” thanks to a bizarre and costly miscalculation from the annals of fiction.
Perhaps John Dyson, the West Indies coach, was humming a Christmas carol to himself while he scanned the Duckworth/Lewis sheet and decided to call in his batsmen after an offer of bad light, believing his side to be one run ahead. Amid gloom, confusion and ultimately embarrassment, the loss of Denesh Ramdin had nudged the advantage to England.
Generosity is rare in cricket and the crestfallen Dyson was a picture of disbelief as Javagal Srinath, the match referee, confirmed what Andrew Strauss already knew. The England captain recognised Dyson’s monumental blunder immediately, but continued to peer at the figures as though he could not believe his luck.
West Indies, stimulated by a blistering innings by Shivnarine Chanderpaul in which he cracked 26 runs from a single Stephen Harmison over, needed 27 runs to win from 22 balls at the end. The crowd of 19,000 were told by the public address announcer that their side had won; it was probably as well there was no correction.
England had done quite a few things well through the game. Owais Shah continued his form from the one-day series in India, Stuart Broad led the bowling attack maturely and Paul Collingwood battled through a migraine to top score and make an impact with the ball.
Strauss won an important toss, but walked off ruefully after following the first boundary of the match — in the seventh over — by slicing what would have been a comfortable wide from Daren Powell to backward point. The sight of Kevin Pietersen then struggling for timing no doubt influenced England’s estimation of a par score.
Ravi Bopara played nicely alongside Shah, especially in the early overs of Nikita Miller’s spin, and Collingwood gave the innings impetus straight away. But showers could not have halted play at a worse time for England with the fourth-wicket pair gathering momentum and preparing to call for the batting powerplay.
A total of about 300 was not unrealistic, but with Shah top-edging a pull having struck 62 from 86 balls and Dimitri Mascarenhas succumbing to slightly low bounce second ball, the five overs of fielding restrictions yielded only 19 runs.
Chasing 271, Ramnaresh Sarwan, as befitting a batsman in the form of his life, looked at ease without ever threatening to tear apart the attack and Lendl Simmons appeared jittery whenever he went a few balls without a run. The loss of both men inside three overs handed England the advantage.
That was to reckon without Chanderpaul. He lofted his first ball, from Collingwood, over mid-on to the boundary to bring his local crowd, now filling the National Stadium, to its feet in a frenzy. The assault on Harmison could be described as bullying but for the fact that Harmison is the giant, Chanderpaul the titch.
The first ball of the 40th over, short and wide, was drilled past cover point, the next flipped over fine leg for six. Two forcing strokes pierced the offside ring before a straight drive and a slash over cover completed the over. Regret when he fell almost immediately afterwards was palpable.
But the impact of that over on Harmison became clear as he allowed a straightforward catch at long-on from Pollard, off Gareth Batty, to slip through his hands and creep over the rope. His place for the second game here tomorrow is far from assured.
England*A J Strauss c Bravo b Powell 15R S Bopara lbw b Miller 43K P Pietersen c Powell b Bravo 17O A Shah c Ramdin b Bravo 62P D Collingwood c Bravo b Pollard 69A D Mascarenhas lbw b Pollard 0†M J Prior not out 26S C J Broad run out 8G J Batty not out 2Extras (lb 4, w 23, nb 1) 28Total (7 wkts, 50 overs) 270
S J Harmison and J M Anderson did not bat.
Fall of wickets: 1-28, 2-64, 3-117, 4-215, 5-216, 6-243, 7-263.
Bowling: Powell 5-0-27-1; Edwards 5-0-23-0; Bravo 10-0-65-2; Sammy 10-0-43-0; Miller 9-0-48-1; Pollard 8-0-46-2; Gayle 3-0-14-0.
West Indies*C H Gayle lbw b Broad 2L M P Simmons c Anderson b Batty 62R R Sarwan c Strauss b Collingwood 57S Chanderpaul c Strauss b Broad 46K A Pollard c Harmison b Anderson 42D J Bravo c Bopara b Anderson 1†D Ramdin lbw b Broad 11D J G Sammy not out 0Extras (b 5, lb 4, w 14) 23Total (7 wkts, 46.2 overs) 244
N O Miller, F H Edwards, D B L Powell did not bat.
Fall of wickets: 1-6, 2-131, 3-152, 4-212, 5-213, 6-242, 7-244.
Bowling: Broad 9.2-2-41-3; Anderson 8-0-39-2; Harmison 7-0-51-0; Mascarenhas 8-0-33-0; Batty 7-0-34-1; Collingwood 7-0-37-1.
Umpires: Aleem Dar (Pakistan) and C R Duncan.
One-day schedule: Guyana: Tomorrow: Second one-day international. Bridgetown: Friday: Third one-day international. Bridgetown: Sunday, March 29: Fourth one-day international. Gros Islet, St Lucia: Friday, March 3: Fifth one-day international.
Source:the times