Athanaze’s joint-fastest fifty on debut helps West Indies sweep UAE 3-0
Alick Athanaze announced himself with the joint-fastest half-century on ODI debut and Kevin Sinclair marked his return with a four-wicket haul as West Indies swept UAE 3-0 in Sharjah.
Athanaze, who idolises Brian Lara, unleashed some audacious pulls that would’ve done Lara proud, while Sinclair found sharp grip and turn to trigger an UAE collapse of 8 for 42. Though West Indies themselves suffered a mini-collapse later in the evening, they overhauled their target of 185 with four wickets and nearly 15 overs to spare.
Both Athanaze and Sinclair are not part of West Indies’ squad for the upcoming ODI World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe, but they provided a peek into West Indies’ future. When Athanze zoomed to a 26-ball half-century, Carlos Brathwaite, who was on TV commentary at the time, even called 24-year-old Athanaze the “future of West Indies cricket”. Athanaze had been earmarked for the big time ever since he topped the run charts in the 2018 Under-19 World Cup in New Zealand.
On Friday, Athanaze got cracking immediately, smoking left-arm fingerspinner Ayan Afzal Khan for a brace of sixes. He then took seamer Junaid Siddique for a triptych of fours, racing to 30 off 11 balls. He then equalled Krunal Pandya’s record for the joint-fastest fifty on ODI debut with a drilled four off Rohan Mustafa. Athanaze looked good for a century on debut, but Aayan cut his innings short on 65 off 45 balls.
Aayan and wristspinner Karthik Meriyappan, whose stock ball is the wrong’un, then made West Indies’ middle order toil for the win. In the absence of regular captain Shai Hope and vice-captain Brandon King, who were rested among a number of changes, West Indies went 81 balls without a boundary. Stand-in captain Roston Chase, however, closed out the chase along with Keemo Paul without any further drama.
Brief scores:
West Indies 185 for 6 (Athanaze 65, Brooks 39, Aayan 2-40) beat UAE 184 (Aravind 70, Waseem 42, Sinclair 4-24, Cariah 2-34) by four wickets
