At 172/1 in 23.2 overs, the West Indies needed 108 runs to win in 26.4 overs, with 9 wickets in hand – including Brian Lara, Ramnaresh Sarwan, and with Shivnaraine Chanderpaul still at the wicket. Yet, they lost the game in the end by 78 runs.
I mapped this spectacular collapse using my ratings method. The results look quite interesting –
The graph shows the fortunes of each side in terms of performance per ball bowled (Y Axis). The data points are the points where a wicket fell. So we have both teams starting at Zero, with the West Indies enjoying the early success with the wicket of Jacques. Then we see Australia in the ascendant thru Ponting and Katich. Through out the Australian innings however, the West Indies stayed competitive and even inched up on the Australian performance worm (if you will) towards the end of the innings. The West Indies innings saw a spectacular spike at the beginning, and they were way ahead of the Australians at 136/1. Then came the slide – 9/29 in about 10 overs of play. The final bends in the graphs are a function of adding the win bonus in Australias case, and making the West Indies innings to show 201 all out in 50 overs (when a side is all out, it is assumed to have used up all its 50 overs for the purpose of runrate calculation).
What this game does suggest though, is that the West Indies on their day can beat anybody. All they would need to do is to keep doing what they showed today for the first 73 overs of the match, for another 20 overs. They will end up winning more times then not.
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