Live Blogging: West Indies vs New Zealand T20, Florida

1.45 PM EDT: A warm welcome to my friends and fellow CWer’s. This is Ganesh Venkat providing you live updates of the T20 game between WIvs NZL from the central broward regional park, Lauderhill, FL. The weather is absolutely steaming and the crowd is building up slowly. It’s indeed strange to cover a cricket match in the USA for me, So I have my STL Cardinals shirt on for the baseball feel. The music is blaring and we are hours away from the game.

2.45EDT : The toss is done and NZL have won the toss and decided to bowl first. WI in a surprise move have excluded Rampaul. Simmons is the one to miss out. Tom Latham, Will Keep for the kiwis. The crowd want to see Gayle in action and he must be walking in very soon. I will be giving updates every seven overs.

3.30EDT: In a contrasting period of play, Smith Started off in spectacular fashion carting two sixes in the first over, Gayle however was circumspect. The pitch looks bone dry and should be good entertainment however Smith got bowled by Bracewell swiping across the line. The pitch has been playing reasonably well and strokes are easy to come by. Johnson Charles came in at #3 and started playing some positive strokes to up the ante. With the Spinners in the WI side I think a score of 150-160 should be challenging. At the end of the 7th over WI are 46/1.

4PM EDT: Gayle was struggling to hit those big hits, until he straight drove McCullum for a four and six in the 11th over and the flood gates were open. He tonked Hira for another six in the 12th over and broke his finger the ver next ball with a powerful hit. West Indies reached 100 in the 13th over and johnson was dismissed at the 14th over and Pollard walked in to raptures from the crowd. With six overs to go it could be carnage if these two stay. At the end of the 14th over they are 117/2.

4.40PM EDT: In what turned out to be a treat for everyone in the ground, The deadliest pair in T20 Pollard and Gayle combined to massacre the kiwis scoring 50’s in the process and propelled WI to a monstrous total of 209/2 in 20 overs,. Their highest in this format of the game. The black caps had no answer to Pollard’s powerful hits and Gayle’s finesse. The kiwi attack looked pedestrian, their fielding was appalling and added to that Jacob Oram struggled to keep his control giving away wides and no balls at will. With Newzealand’s propensity to struggle against spinners, WI might have just done enough to take a 1-0 lead in the two match series.

5.20EDT:The blackcaps started in aggressive fashion and came out playing their shorts and raced to 30 runs in three overs. Rob Nicol was the aggressor, WI had a blow when Pollard fell on this shoulders and got injured. For all the fears about the wicket, The wicket was a belter and even 210 does not look safe for a moment. However a smart stumping by Ramdin of Narine has tilted the balance in favor of the West Indies a little bit. It’s hard to type and look at the game, You blink and you miss the game. lol. T20 has well and truly arrived at the USA. if Only India were playing here, I cannot imagine the crowd that would have turned up for the game. In the mean time Ross Taylor has walked off the field holding his shoulder. At the end of the 7th over NZL are 56/1.

5.50PM EDT: NewZeland were clueless in their chase of 210, They had not only lost three wickets, Lost Taylor to an injury and Promoted Tim Southee up the order to accelerate. But the stifle was on and they had limped to 78/2 in 10 overs. With Jacob Oram in the hut it was baffling to promote Southee. But he used the long handle to good effect, Sammy meanwhile picked up the wicket of Williamson and Bravo picked up Nicol to leave the kiwis facing a huge defeat. Kiwi chase did not have any purpose nor direction. At the end of the 14th over they just barely passed the 100 run mark to end up on 105/3.

WI completed a comprehensive victory when they beat Newzealand by 57 runs in the first T20 international of the two match series. The result was never in doubt after the Gayle-Pollard show and when the NZL players fell like nine pins either to the bowler or to injury it was just a formality. Oram delayed the inevitable with a fees lusty blows, however in the end WI were clearly the superior team in all departments of the game today. It would be really interesting to see how the black caps respond tomorrow after the drubbing today especially given the number of injuries.