West Indies level T20 series thanks to Bravo masterclass

An all-round performance from Bravo helped WI level the T20 seriesCaption

West Indies captain Darren Sammy said their first win on this tour of Sri Lanka in the Second T20 at Colombo, will serve as an encouragement to the squad. The visitors won by 23 runs thanks largely to a Man of the Match performance Dwayne Bravo, which drew some parallels to their defence of 137 in the 2012 World T20 final at the same venue, reports ESPNCricinfo.

Sammy described the 162 they put as an above par-score, thanks largely to Denesh Ramdin and Bravo. The hosts looked on course for the win before a collapse in the middle of their innings saw them tumble from 93 for 1 to being bowled out for 139, handing West Indies a comfortable win.

"When we played the final here we scored 130-something and defended it - that was a reminder for the guys when we went into field," Sammy said. "We had a good start. We controlled our play. They didn't get off to a flyer. They didn't get used to any particular bowler.

“The plan was to give one-over spells to the bowlers and it worked. We kept on picking wickets every time they looked like building a partnership.”

The visitors were on the money in the field, holding onto some acrobatic catches to ensure they got something out of their tour to Sri Lanka. Bravo, who picked up four wickets to go along with run-a-ball 31 said “our fielding is what won us that game”.

“It always makes your job easier when you have Andre Russell, Darren Sammy, Kieron Pollard - some of the best fielders in the world - in one team. I'm a bit on the older side so I wouldn't add my name to that. It's good to be on a team that has such good athletes. It makes all our jobs easy."

The openers of West Indies’ Johnson Charles and Andre Fletcher made a decent score of 62- runs but as soon as they got dismissed, the innings got bogged down but their hitting had already done plenty of damage, Sammy said.

“Today Malinga hit a lot of his yorkers and so did Kulasekara," Sammy said. "They bowled really well at the end of the innings. The work done by Charles and Fletcher at the top gave us that cushion - even if they bowled some good overs.”

West Indies made only 34 runs in the last five overs of their innings, but death-over fireworks were not necessarily required in this match, according to Bravo.

"In this format not all the time do you need to go for the big shots and score in excess of 130-140 strike rate. The conditions dictated how I played. We had a very good start. My role then became the anchor role and allow others to play around me.

“It would have been silly to let the ego get the better of me and try and score at 130-135 strike rate. That was not required at that point in time. Denesh' innings was very important. It gave us momentum. It wasn’t a 190-200 wicket.”