Lovely West Indies in Super 8!

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West Indies vs Pakistan. The cup opener :

Quite similar to what Windies did in 2003 cup opener against South Africa, they beat Pakistan convincingly at Sabina Park. The opener ended up like a poem for hosts. They beat a good team and that must be providing a good confidence to move on and sail through super 8.

Windies are in super 8 I must say as neither Ireland nor Zimbabwe can provide any upsets. Pakistan will aim for a win against Zimbabwe and their outing against Ireland should be tough one. Based on how Irish played against South Africa in the warm up game.

Not a great opening by Gayle and Chanderpaul. Gayle went out very cheaply, but Sarwan and Chanderpaul put the innings together off to a good start. Chanderpaul and Sarwan followed by Samuels and Lara played very well to put the windies in good shape.

Earlier Pakistan skipper won the toss and elected to field for some reason. Probably he had WI-India warm up match in mind and thought he can bowl the opponents over quickly. The match started early at 9:30 to provide a good condition for bowlers.

Pakistan fielding was not so good, Younis dropped Sarwan on his first ball faced, a costly drop! Danish played his part, he even threw the ball over the boundry after fielding and gave away free stuff!

Sarvan played beautifully, his sugar sweet cover drives and on drives. I am watching him for the first time on tv, looks very strong (9 hundreds in tests and 3 in odis). But the best out of the bunch was Marlon Samuels. Beautiful lifts against Danish. Samuels made 63. Dwayne Smith made a quickfire 32. It was his innings partially helped him to get man of the match award.

Windies made 241 at the end of 50 overs for 9 wickets down. Nice score indeed with the given conditions... A competitive score to defend against.

Pakistan started with losing Imran on the third ball and Younis during fouth over. Then onwards, wickets kept falling at regular intervals. Shoaib made 62 with others did not even tried to match him...

A good opening for west indies, should sail forward easily. With the kind of display they put together today, they should sail into semi finals.