When Sehwag couldn't do a Bravo

Four batsmen scored fifties in the fifth ODI in Trinidad and what won West Indies the match was that they had three of them, whereas India had only Virender Sehwag. Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Dwayne Bravo scored contrasting half-centuries: Gayle provided a blistering start with a flurry of boundaries, Sarwan tided over the middle overs patiently before Bravo accelerated during the slog.

For India, however, Sehwag played the roles of both Gayle and Sarwan. He got the run-chase off to a rapid enough start after India lost two early wickets, and held fort in the middle overs. His inability to stay until the finish, like Bravo did, was what swung the game for West Indies. The graphic below shows the percentage of dot balls, singles, doubles and boundaries in the four fifties.

As you can see, Gayle and Bravo played very different innings. Gayle's first seven scoring shots were fours as he took advantage of the hard new ball. He hardly ran any singles and kept trying to find the fence even though Rahul Dravid chose to delay the Powerplays. Bravo, however, entered when boundaries were hard to come by. He made up for this by dabbing the ball into gaps and running like wildfire. Bravo's first 37 runs took just 31 balls but included just one four. The most telling stat as to how effectively Bravo adapted to the conditions is his dot-ball count. Bravo played just six dots in his 44-ball innings while Gayle had 44 in his 61-ball innings. Bravo's tendency to take a run off every ball and convert ones into twos at the slightest fumble put immense pressure on the Indians, and they cracked. Throws were wide, tight run-outs were missed, and crucially, Bravo was dropped when he had made just 24.

Sarwan's solid innings ensured that West Indies had wickets intact for Bravo to up the tempo at the death. Though Sarwan's 52 off 97 balls could be regarded as slow, he did what the Indian batsmen couldn't - bat patiently on a slow pitch without losing regular wickets. Sehwag's riposte was fitting: he scored 11 boundaries, one more than Gayle, and comfortably outpaced Sarwan. But for a single person to accomplish what three batsmen had done was asking too much.