West Indies to meet India for Legends title

VINODE MAMCHAN

West Indies will battle India for the 2021 Legends World Cup title on Thursday when the final is played at the Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill, USA.

Both teams have won two matches in the preliminary round play and Wednesday they will play a dress rehearsal at the same venue as it will mark their last preliminary round matches. On Tuesday, India easily got past the United States and West Indies took care of Pakistan.

India owed their victory to the had hitting Fasal Alam who struck a mighty 76 to chase down a daunting 173-run victory target. USA batted first and got to 172/6 off their 20 overs. This was thanks in the main to the classy Dr. Hammad Malik who scored 58 off 42 balls with four sixes and two fours. He took charge of the innings after the early loss of skipper Mahammad Qureshi who fell to his opposite number Ritesh Patel.Assisting Malik was Amir Kiani 34, Anwar Ahmed 27 and Sunny Singh 26.

Raju Jasani took 3/19, while Ritesh continued his impressive tournament with figures of 1/14 off four probing overs.

When the Indian team went to bat, they lost an early wicket in Rocky Singh but this let in Alam who took the bowling by the scruff of the neck and wrest the initiative from the hosts. He slammed the bowling to all parts of the ground to score 76 off 44 balls with five sixes and eight fours. The consistent Ketan Patel continued his good work to score to 49 not out off 34 balls with two sixes and two fours.

… Nagas again for the West Indies

In the second match, it took a fine all-round performance from former West Indies Test cricketer Mahendra Nagamootoo to seal the win against Pakistan. Nagamootoo took 3/32 when Pakistan batted as they fell away towards the end of their innings to finish on 123/9. Top scoring for Pakistan was Sameer Malik with 44, while Ankur Sharma playing his first game made 38. West Indies in response lost an early wicket in Peter Singh but the obdurate Krishna Harricharan scored 42 to hold the innings together. And just as on the opening day of action, Nagamootoo came back with the bat to score an unbeaten 21 off nine balls to get the seven-wicket win. Salim Satar also played well in getting 32 not out.