West Indies Under-19 ended up stunning over 10,000 fans at the Shere Bangla Stadium on Thursday by chasing down 227, with three wickets in hand, in an anxious fashion against Bangladesh Under-19 in the semi-final of the Under-19 World Cup.
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Added Hetmyer: “Credit to the bowlers for not allowing Bangladesh to run up a big score”.
Springer took up the charge and scored two consecutive boundaries to finish the match in style with unbeaten 62 after his incisive spell of 10-0-36-2.
Having won the toss, Bangladesh lost opener Pinak Ghosh for a duck, and were struggling at 58-3 when their top-scorer for the tournament, Nazmul Hossain Shanto, fell for 11.
He said that the West Indies should have “programmes in place” to turn talented youngsters into world beaters like their predecessors of the 1970s-90s.
In a tricky chase, Nepal lost an early wicket but a 97-run stand between Sunil Dhamala (59) and Yogendra Singh Karki (35) put the chase back on track.
A 15-match unbeaten run can intimidate any team but West Indies are not trying to look at that.
“India is obviously a good team and we are excited about playing the final”.
The semifinal has been won, the transformation has been made.
India is on a 15-match winning streak since losing to England in the quarter-final of the previous edition in the United Arab Emirates two years ago.
While the song is their heartbeat, Shimron Hetmyer, the captain, said Paul, his deputy, was the last person to need external motivation at crunch moments. “But it is about how we plan to tackle them and how we execute it on the field”.
The Windies needed a controversial last over victory over Zimbabwe, to keep themselves in the main tournament and push the Zimbabweans into the Plate event, with the win roundly condemned by many cricket commentators.
“This is indeed a time for us to celebrate and cheer on the young men as they try to create history”, urged WICB President Dave Cameron. It’s among the more peculiar – some would argue anachronistic – features of cricket that a player ends up being blamed for actually implementing the law. “I have debriefed the boys in the dressing room and they were all crying”, Mangongo said.
The surprising West Indies team, who pulled off a shocking upset of Pakistan to reach the semifinal – and prevent an all-Asian Final Four in the 2016 U19 World Cup – know that, in the words of their coach Graeme West, “we will not be playing against a team only, but a whole nation”.
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Paul had three wickets to his name while Chemar K Holder (2-36) and Springer (2-36) shared four wickets equally. “It was quite a challenge out there, but I just backed myself to do well”. “When I play at home we have a lot of people coming in and support me and my team as well”, he says, surprising a room full of journalists listening to him intently. For us being the team that’s in the final, it is a very good feeling. He first bounced out Mehedi Hasan Miraz before bursting through Mohammad Saifuddin next ball.
