The West Indies became the first team to qualify for the Super Eights phase of the T20 World Cup when they cruised to victory against Nepal by nine wickets on Sunday.
After restricting Nepal to 133-8 in their 20 overs, captain Shai Hope’s 61 not out helped his team romp to 134-1 in 15.2 overs in the Group C clash at Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium.
Hope reached his fifty off 38 balls and scored three sixes and five fours in all.
He put on an unbroken 91 with Shimron Hetmyer to reach the 134 target with 28 balls to spare.
Hetmyer was 46 not out at the end from 32 balls, with two sixes and four fours. Hope said the qualification was “one step, one hurdle that we’ve crossed”.
“Good to contribute to wins,” he added of his own batting, after scores of 19 and nought in his side’s two previous matches at the tournament. “It’s about continuing how we’ve been playing. Hopefully, we can carry through that.”
Hope won the toss and chose to field and his decision was justified by a magnificent spell by Matthew Forde.
The Nepal batsmen found it almost impossible to score off him as Forde took 1-10 from four overs, and bagged the prize wicket of Nepal captain Rohit Paudel for five. “You must give him credit, he’s been hitting his areas,” Hope said of Forde. “He really exploits the movement.”
Nepal were in all sorts of trouble at 22-3 at the end of the six-over power play, then 23-4 and 46-5 as Jason Holder also got among the wickets.
It was only Dipendra Singh Airee’s 58 that pushed Nepal past the 100 mark as he shared in a partnership of 54 for the seventh wicket with Sompal Kami, who was there at the end unbeaten on 26.
“I am glad that I got an opportunity to decide what we wanted to do,” Hope said of winning the toss.
“We wanted to limit the flow of runs and keep taking wickets.”
Holder took 4-27 from his four overs and was named player of the match.
“I thought the ball did a little bit more. Probably held in the surface a little bit more up front,” Holder said.
“It became a little bit more difficult to hit through the line of the ball.
We were able to get a little bit of movement as well, too, which was key.
“I thought our bowlers bowled a really tight line.” The result eliminates Nepal after three defeats. Their final group match is against Scotland in Mumbai on Tuesday.
The West Indies’ final group game will be against Italy in Kolkata on Thursday.
The Caribbean side will then return to Mumbai for their first Super Eights match on February 23, with their opponents still to be decided.