Stand and deliver is the ‘mantra’ for the West Indies batsmen

All the sweat that Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni gave on the field by skilfully converting the ones into twos came to nothing when confronted with the sheer power of the West Indians. 

The basic principle of running between the wickets and fielding like tigers have no place in this brute form of cricket and there is one scoring shot that will neutralise all the running that you did in one over - a six. That was exactly what the West Indies did at the Wankhede as a hapless India, 35000 people at the stadium and millions outside watched in disbelief. 

Stand and deliver is the ‘mantra’ in T20 for the West Indian batsmen and they are not there to run like hares or getting applause for their athleticism on the field. Their muscle will do the talking and the bat is only a tool to give expression to it. 

Ten or 15 runs added to the board by virtue of running between the wickets vanish into thin air when their batsmen add 50 runs extra (India scored 90 in fours and sixes to the West Indies’ 140) by sending the ball beyond the boundary. Before the semi-final, when captain Darren Sammy said he had 15 match-winners in his side, you never believed it. 

You thought every captain would say this when his team is on a roll and just consider the fact that the captain himself has not done anything (or not required to do anything) either with the bat or the ball, it just proves the kind of stuff they have at their disposal. 

Sammy is as powerful a striker as a Gayle or a Russell and if he leaves India with the trophy in hand without having to bat, it would be a great tribute to their team selection. Look how well they have weathered the internal problems when two of their best players, Sunil Narine and Kieron Pollard, opted out of the squad. Lendl Simmons followed with an injury just before the team left for India. 

Cometh the hour and cometh the man and first Gayle did his part, then Andre Fletcher destroyed Sri Lanka and in between Samuels and Charles guided them home against South Africa. Then Simmons comes in when Fletcher went home injured and blasts the Indians with Russell adding fuel to fire with those sixes and fours. 

This is the calypso batting style which Greenidge, Fredericks, Richards and Lloyd practised in the 1970s and 80s. They never believed in singles and twos; for them the bat is a sword in hand and they would rather murder the bowlers than massage them, be it in 50-overs ODIs or Tests.