The second time West Indies had won, Papua New Guinea was curtailed. 136 runs were posted by the eight players who batted but that was below par for sesebau. Impressive half-century T20 World Cup Sunday’s opener at Georgetown.
Papua New Guinea’s innings were boosted by Bauu’s 50 runs off 43 balls. Playing in a major tournament, he showed his potential to rise above the odds of life.
Papua New Guinea found themselves in trouble at 50 for 4 before Bowe teamed up with Charles Amini (12) to stabilize the innings with a crucial 44-run partnership.
Given that spin would play a big role West Indies went into this match with three spinners and when they won the toss they decided to field first.
This decision immediately bore fruit as Hussain took just two balls in his opening over to prove rushmen wrong.
However, it is Shepherd who makes way for pace. He managed to get Tony out bowled on round two. On his delivery he induced an outside edge from the batsman leading him to be caught behind.
While Akeal Hosein dismisses No.3 batsman Lega Siaka through an arm ball, Alzarri Joseph gets rid of PNG skipper Assad Wala (21 off 22 balls). Vara showed off his batting ability with a couple of crisp strikes at cover before being caught brilliantly by Roston Chase at the back.
Vala then smacked an extra cover boundary for six off spinner Chase in the previous over which has been one of highlights so far this afternoon for PNG’s innings.
Sese Bau then came forward and ensured that boundaries continued to come intermittently as PNG sought recovery consolidation upon their scorecard.
Like Vara, left-arm Baugh launched somewhat unorthodox shots against left-arm spinner Gurdakesh Mothy swinging him for sixes and fours thus giving life to the innings.
Semi-state, however, did well to get close to the 140-run mark after Baugh’s departure.
