The youthful West Indies under 19 team, made cricket fans across the region, extremely happy, early Sunday morning, when they proudly lifted the coveted under 19 world cup trophy.
Against all odds and coming up against a powerful Indian team which had won 20 of their last 21 games, the boys in maroon completed a well coordinated upset.
Captain Shimron Hetmyer won the toss and elected to send the opposition in to bat on a somewhat green top surface.
Pacers Alzarri Joseph and Chemar Holder bowled with pace and purpose and shocked the early batsmen.
However, it was the quick thinking of wicketkeeper Tevin Imlach who spotted the opening batsman Pant, out of his crease after leaving a delivery and threw down the stumps, to get the first wicket in an unusual fashion. It would go down in the score book as stumped.
Thereafter, the Windies kept the Indians under tight reign and it was only the inform Sarfaraz who managed 51 in the end, who had a stand out knock.
The Windies in response seemed to be going along smoothly on the back of a fine partnership between Carty and Hetmyer, until Hetmyer gifted his wicket to long on and the chest roll champion Shamar Springer followed in similar fashion, shortly after.
The Windies had their work cut out at 75 for 5, with the Indian spinners weaving their magic and on top for the moment.
However, Keemo Paul teamed up with Carty in an unbroken partnership, which despite a few chances, was really impressive to look at.
It came down to three runs required from the last over and it must have been poetic justice in motion, when the winning runs came from the bat of Keemo Paul, the man who had gotten the Windies into the quarter finals stage, with the use of the Mankad’ method, which invoked the wrath of many cricketing pundits across the world.
Summarized scores: West Indies 146 for 5 (Carty 52*, Paul 40*, Dagar 3-25) beat India 145 (Sarfaraz 51, Batham 21, John 3-38, Joseph 3-39) by five wickets